


Nostalgic for the present

by thingsbaker



Series: Titanium [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Olivier (the food), Russian Skating Family, minor character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-10-01 03:24:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 68,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17236466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsbaker/pseuds/thingsbaker
Summary: With Yakov still out (perhaps for the season), Yuuri returns to St. Petersburg exhausted, newly married, and ready to help Victor pick up where his coach left off.Sure, it'll be that easy.





	1. Monday, 26 Dec 2016

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, OK, I thought I'd have this done in September and... now it's not the same year? I thought this would be a quick follow-up story and it wound up being longer than the original. Wheeee.  
> But it's done, and I appreciate the chance to share it with you all!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welllllllll for some reason, after writing one-chapter-per-day for the teeny tiny span of the GPF, I thought hey, what if I did it for the entire span between returning home and Europeans?  
> I didn't end up doing that exactly but... it's close.
> 
> (oh no so many days)
> 
> Good news: It's done!

Yuuri returned to Russia a married man, a two-time consecutive Japanese National Men’s Figure Skating champion, and a traveler with a sleep deficit deeper than the sea he’d flown over to get there. The customs agent cared about only one of these, and it was a sharp (and luckily, swift) reminder that he would need to look into whether his changed marital status changed his visa status, pronto.  
  
Stamp secured, he stepped out of the gate area into the clean, gray-and-white mall of the St. Petersburg airport. The long middle hall held few travelers, even though it was 9 p.m. on the day after Christmas in many parts of the world. Maybe it felt emptier, Yuuri thought, because Victor wasn’t there to greet him; he’d had to stay in Chelyabinsk after Russian Nationals for an extra day. It felt like a somewhat inauspicious welcome home, but after 12 hours of travel, Yuuri was also slightly grateful not to have to face anyone.

He checked his phone, sent a quick group text confirming his arrival, and then dragged his suitcase out to find a taxi. Traveling with Victor brought the benefit of hired cars, but traveling alone and behind his mask brought the honor of not being recognized. He over-enunciated his Russian, feigning ignorance of the language to stifle conversation, and almost enjoyed his ride back to the apartment.  
  
St. Petersburg wasn’t quite home, not yet, but Yuuri had begun to understand that nowhere really was, at the moment. His brief trip back to Hasetsu had been warm and comforting, but also stifling and dull. He didn’t miss Detroit, but when in Japan, he sometimes longed for the independent life he’d lived there. In Russia, he had a balance of the two: support from Victor (and his rink-mates), but a good amount of autonomy, too. Yuuri didn’t exactly blend in around St. Petersburg, but he didn’t really need to. He could comfortably disappear into the cosmopolitan European crowds and expected to be ignored by more traditionally central-Russian groups.  
  
Their apartment was on the second story of a small, modern building, and Yuuri was grateful that someone had already shoveled the walks. Once inside, he turned up the heat, then debated whether to call Victor or fetch Makkachin. It was really no contest: the neighbor who had agreed to watch her had small children who went to bed early, so if Yuuri hurried, he’d still be able to collect her that evening. Twenty minutes later, he fell into Victor’s king-sized bed and was promptly half-covered in dog. His eyes began to droop even as he held his phone up.  
  
“Ah, hello,” Victor said, grinning, his slightly fuzzy image replacing the Skype logo. “Both of my favorites in one of my favorite places. I see you arrived safely.”  
  
“I texted.” Yuuri yawned. “How was the rest of your day?”  
  
“Fine,” Victor said, “but it looks like we should talk about it tomorrow?”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Yuuri said. “I mean, I can stay up, if you need? I —“  
  
The audio buzzed faintly for a moment as they talked over each other. “Yura,” Victor said, voice full of affection, “I love that you’d offer, but I am fine and have nothing to report.” His grin seemed genuine enough. “But do call me in the morning, all right? I might need your help with something tomorrow, if I am held up in this meeting.”  
  
Yuuri stirred enough to register that. “Do you think you’ll have to stay an extra day?”  
  
“Not if they beg,” Victor said. “I will — if I miss my flight, I’ll hire a car, or a sled team, or build a train, or…”  
  
“OK, OK,” Yuuri said, grinning. “I get it.”  
  
They said their good-byes and good nights, and though Yuuri thought about how much he needed to shower, or how likely it was that Makkachin needed a walk, he was asleep within minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that was short! Hoping to do one chapter every other day until it's all posted!!!


	2. Tuesday, 27 Dec. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri runs a practice; Victor gets home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's another day! Now with rinkmates!  
> Also, behold, my ongoing obsession with Yuuri's finances...

He woke up about ten hours later, thirsty and disoriented, which at least was predictable for major travel. A walk to the kitchen cured the second; a glass of water cured the first. He pulled on boots and one of Victor’s longest coats and took Makkachin to the small dog yard behind the building, sending Victor a text as she did her business. Then he spent twenty minutes worshipping Victor’s choice of shower heads. The warm pounding water of its massage mode made his scalp and shoulders start to lose some of their travel tension.  
  
The bathroom in the flat was still mostly Victor’s. His skincare and haircare products dominated the counter space, and the furnishings and fixtures represented his choices. The thick, fluffy towels held his monogram.  
  
The kitchen, on the other hand, looked like shared territory. Yuuri’s rice cooker squatted on prime counter space, next to his electric kettle and tea accoutrement. Chopsticks lined up neatly in the silverware drawer. The refrigerator was covered in photographs of the two of them and picture cards from friends. Yuuri often left his laptop on the counter overnight, and in the mornings they sometimes snagged each others’ chargers from the island’s plug. It felt warm here, all of the time, and close to home.  
  
The lingering travel weariness would be improved by a good breakfast, so Yuuri set about making tamagoyaki. As he cooked his thin egg-and-dashi batter in the special pan his mother had shipped, he saw his phone blinking. He’d missed a message from Victor, likely while he was out walking Makkachin earlier.  
  
_**Victor** : About to go to Round 2 of meeting. Wish me luck._  
_**Yuuri** : Ganbatte!_  
  
Victor had stayed a day later than the rest of the skaters because the Russian skating federation had wanted to meet with him after the close of competition. It was customary for the Federation to meet with its skaters after the national competition, of course, but they had been clear that this meeting would be about more than that and was only required for Victor. It sounded slightly ominous but was, also, not unexpected. To hear Victor (or Yakov, after a drink or five) tell it, Victor had been kept after school by the Russian skating federation at least twice a year since he’d started competing. This year, as he was standing in for Yakov as his recovery from last month’s heart attack continued, Victor probably had quite a bit to talk with the Federation about.  
  
Yuuri hoped that meeting went better than his own with the Japanese Skating Federation — which had, really, been fine. Strangely tense, but fine. He folded the first layer of egg as he replayed the memory, letting his mind wander as his hands did the familiar work. The JSF still seemed slightly embarrassed to find Katsuki Yuuri as their standard bearer. He’d been a Cinderella story at the 2016-17 GPF, but that was only because he’d lost so spectacularly at the 2015-16 final, when he had also been a Cinderella story (but one with a tragic ending). Now, he still received full funding from them, but he could see in their expressions and hear in their voices how much they hated it. He wasn’t the picture-perfect skating star with a long history of success that they wanted as their likely first pick for the 2018 Olympics (which was not secured or assured, but… he’d won Nationals by forty-five points). He also wasn’t the handsome, single, training-on-home-turf boy they had perhaps desired. Dating and now marrying his coach/competitor and moving to Russia had placed an uncomfortable amount of attention on Yuuri’s personal life. The JSF didn’t love that.  
  
As long as they kept kicking in funding for his training, though, Yuuri tried to tell himself he could live with their disappointment. Since Victor still hadn’t gotten around to ever charging him coaching fees, Yuuri used the JSF money to pay for rink time, trainers, equipment, and travel. His GPF money from Barcelona had been given to his parents to pay back the loan they’d taken out to send him to Sochi the year before. He’d paid off his travel credit cards and one existing loan with his winnings from 4C’s, and the money from Worlds… well. It had been the most he’d ever earned or seen in his account at any given time. It had paid off more debt and given him enough to live on and travel on for the summer, though he’d also banked additional funding from a few ice shows. The summer had actually been one of the least expensive living experiences he’d had since moving out from his parents’ home. Victor owned his apartment and wouldn’t hear of Yuuri paying rent, and he mostly dined at home and drank on the town, where friendly discounts were abundant.  
  
Still, future prize money had no guarantee. Even now, when Yuuri had new, en-route prize checks from the GPF and All-Japan headed his way, he didn’t take the JSF funding for granted. That morning, in particular, he was grateful for it because he was going to book himself a slew of new training sessions and, as a therapeutic treat, a massage. He also felt he deserved it because the JSF announcements of who would go to Four Continents and Worlds had come out that morning, and Yuuri was at the top of both lists. They’d also provisionally named him to the Asian Winter Games slot for skating — a sure sign that the national bench had no depth.  
  
He thought about this as he took his folded omelet over to the kitchen island to eat. Victor wouldn’t be too excited about the Asian Winter Games, but Yuuri didn’t mind going. It would be another place where he could hang out with Phichit, and as most countries would send their second-string skaters, he could back down his own programs and have a little more fun. Maybe they could talk about it when Victor got home.  
  
Makkachin panted beside him, but Yuuri shooed her toward her food bowl and concentrated on his own breakfast. Tamagoyaki would be better with a bed of sweet sushi rice, but he wasn’t going to get so far out of diet, not yet. At least not without witnesses, he decided, since Victor wouldn’t scold him as much if he’d been the one encouraging the splurge.  
  
He glanced at his phone again and saw a new message from Victor asking for a call. Yuuri quickly dialed, choosing not to be on camera so Victor wouldn’t have to watch him eat.  
  
“I have survived to fight another day!” Victor crowed as he answered. He had the phone propped on something, facing him, because Yuuri saw both of his hands fly up as he declared victory. “Also, I think they agreed to pay for my costuming over the summer.”  
  
“Really? Don’t tell me how you did that over the phone,” Yuuri said, and Victor laughed. The gray wall and bland art behind him made Yuuri think he was still in his hotel. “Was that what the meeting was about? Money?”  
  
“Eh, mostly,” Victor said. Makkachin, perhaps drawn by Victor’s voice or by the half egg on Yuuri’s place, appeared again by his feet. “They wanted an update on Yakov, and on the others. I explained our coaching trial.” He paused, and Yuuri chewed his egg, waiting. “I may have implied that Yakov’s imminent return was, perhaps, more imminent than is technically true.”  
  
“Ah.” The last report they’d had on Yakov had shown improvement, but there were no promises yet on when he could return to St. Petersburg, much less to full-time coaching. “They think you’re just filling in for a bit, then?”  
  
“Until Euros,” Victor said. Yuuri watched him shrug on screen.  
  
That was ridiculous. Yakov could need up to six months to recover fully; Euros were in a month. “Victor! Do they think Yakov will be back this season?”  
  
He shrugged again. “Who is to say what goes through the mind of any other?”  
  
Makkachin nudged Yuuri’s knee, and he reached a hand down to pet her head. It was soothing in the face of Victor’s blasé insanity. “Be careful, please. They pay your rink fees.”  
  
Victor shook his head. “Now, now. I pay my rink fees. Just because right now I get the money for that from the Federation doesn’t mean I can’t find someone else to work for.”  
  
“They clear you to skate,” Yuuri said.  
  
Victor leaned in, his eyes taking up nearly the whole screen. “That’s amazing. I thought for a moment that you’d been possessed by the spirit of Yakov! Yakov, can you hear me? Are you all right?”  
  
“Shut up,” Yuuri said, but he smiled, and then he turned on the camera so Victor could see it.  
  
“Ah, so,” Victor said, “I am speaking with my lovely husband.”  
  
Now, Yuuri’s smile was reflexive. “Hello.”  
  
Victor’s grin was, also, very wide. “Hello. How are you?”  
  
Yuuri made a face at his own appearance in the camera: tousled hair was a good look on Victor, but on Yuuri it just looked messy. “Glad to be home.”  
  
“Mm. Difficult trip?”  
  
“No. Just the last part in Osaka. You know I don’t enjoy the JSF meetings.”  
  
“Mm,” Victor said, nodding sympathetically. “How did the JSF take our happy news?”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Fine. They might have been happier if I’d also announced I had a new coach.”  
  
“I’m wounded,” Victor said, though he didn’t look it. “How did you break the news?”  
  
In the worst way possible, Yuuri thought, but didn’t quite sigh. “They wanted to know what it might take to get me to train in Japan again.” Victor raised an eyebrow. “I said it would take an act of God, since my husband lives in St. Petersburg.”  
  
Victor smiled like he’d won something — no, Yuuri knew his victory smile, and this was brighter. “I like hearing you say that.” Yuuri could feel himself blushing, but he could see that his own smile was just as bright. “Anything else?”  
  
“The same as usual, mostly. Ah, I need to figure out whether this changes my visa status?”  
  
“Hm. Yes. Better make sure you’re not accidentally a Russian citizen before the Olympics come around, yes?” That sounded like a very, very unlikely scenario, which did not at all stop Yuuri from having a brief moment of panic about it. “It’s fine. We will figure it out when I’m home — which should be around 6 tonight.”  
  
“Do you want me to come to the airport?”  
  
“Actually, no,” Victor said, voice suddenly getting lighter, the way he did when he wanted to transition into talking business but didn’t quite know how. “The juniors have some practice time this afternoon.”  
  
“Oh?” Yuuri scratched behind Makkachin’s ears. “No day off?”  
  
“Their day off is Saturday,” Victor said, “and they all wanted to keep it that way, so no.”  
  
Makkachin shook her head, and Yuuri stilled. “They all have the same day off?” That seemed strange to him. He’d always had different off days than his rink mates in the past: it was basically necessary for a coach balancing multiple skaters to spread out their intense work sessions over most of the week. Yuuri had chosen Monday as his free day for most of his time with Celestino, while Phichit had always taken Fridays off. During the last six months, Yuuri had kept to his rest day on Monday, and Victor had decided to do the same. Once or twice, it had afforded them romantic daytrips.  
  
“Yes. Plus,” Victor continued, “they don’t have so much of a rest, like you. There’s Euros to think of, and Junior Nationals, all before your Four Continents competition. No rest for the weary or underperforming!”  
  
Yuuri frowned. “Who’s underperforming out of that bunch?”  
  
“Have you watched the videos yet? You’ll see," he said, sing-song.  
  
“I saw the medal count,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Ah, but is skating really all about the medal count? Or is it about something greater?”  
  
Yuuri tried on a wry grin. “I’ll tell you after I have a higher medal count, how about that?”  
  
“Perfect. While you’re working on that, would you also perhaps stop by the rink to see if they need anything?”  
  
“They’ll all be there at the same time?”  
  
“Stroking practice,” Victor said.  
  
That was easy enough, at least. Yuuri agreed, not sure why they would need his input or presence, but glad to go along. It would give him something to do instead of staring at the door, like Makkachin, waiting for Victor to come home.  
  
After they hung up — which involved an embarrassingly long time of grinning foolishly at each other — Yuuri decided to set up the rink time with the juniors. He still had the group chat active from the GPF, so he sent a text there asking if everyone would mind if he joined their scheduled practice that day. He received four enthusiastic “yes!” texts, a selfie (Mila) giving a thumbs up, and a string of expletives (Yurio) that he assumed was an affirmative.  
  
Then he went back to his breakfast.  
  
He did watch the Russian Nationals videos that morning, broadcasting them on their big TV while he alternately petted Makkachin and did his stretching routines on a yoga mat on the living room floor. RusNats were always bloody. The men’s side had been Victor’s domain for so many years that the real competition started at silver. Last year, of course, everyone had expected Yuri to challenge him for the title, but Yuri had had to sit out Nationals with bronchitis that had nearly landed him in the hospital, and Victor had cruised to a twenty-point win. This year, Yuri had taken seventh in the short program after two falls and an under rotation, then rallied in the free enough to edge out a Moscow skater for the silver. Victor had won by 23 points.  
  
Perhaps the most surprising performance had come from Dima, who had taken fourth in both the short and free programs. Juniors skating at the senior level had to upgrade their programs to be competitive. Dima had taken a risk on his quad toe in both programs, and while he’d put a hand down on the landing, he’d had the full rotations and hadn’t fallen. It had been enough for a very solid score.  
  
Mila had won bronze (within a single point of gold in a hard-fought women's category), and Nathalie was ninth; Katya and Ilya had taken seventh in a particularly competitive seniors pairs field. Other than Yuri’s continuing struggles, there were predictable bobbles here and there, but nothing that screamed “lack of effort.” Then again, from his own experience, Yuuri knew that competitions weren’t always representative of a skater’s training or skill. His own first Grand Prix was proof of that.  
  
So he went to the rink wondering what, exactly, Victor had seen. It probably didn’t matter, though. He was just joining in, making sure everyone showed up, not really coaching them.  
  
That, at least, was what he had thought — right up until he saw five expectant faces (and Yuri) staring back at him as the practice was set to begin.  
  
“Ah — don’t you have a schedule of drills?”  
  
Mila shrugged. “Yakov always has something in mind.”  
  
Yuri looked bored. “Just tell us your routine already.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. He had done edge drills and stroking practice under Celestino, certainly. It was one of the few times during the week when rink time was already paid for, and Yuuri had been able to practice field moves in the second half of the hour. That had been a few years, though. With Victor, his practice had been much less predictable — much more focused on his particular needs.  
  
Still, the old drills could work, he decided, and set his guards down. “All right. Maybe we can learn from each other. Do you all know this one?”  
  
Forty-five minutes later, Yuuri was the only one not clinging to the boards — but he was close. His legs ached in the way that a good practice always guaranteed, and he stretched languidly as he made a final circle of the ice. “It’s good, good job," he said, when Dima started to straighten up like he was ready for another round. “Ah, we still have 15 minutes, but — you can go, if you want.”  
  
Nathalie and Mila took this permission like it was an order and practically fell off the ice; the others stayed where they were, sipping from water bottles. Yuuri hoped they’d feel comfortable enough to join him in a minute, but he was glad for the open ice.  
  
Since Nationals, something had been bothering him about his short program combination. They had planned to upgrade the combo from a quad toe-triple toe to quad Lutz-triple toe for 4CC and Worlds, but Yuuri had gone ahead and upgraded to the 4L-3T at the GPF. Now, he needed something else. He wasn’t bored with it, not exactly, but… Maybe a third jump? He had the time for it. The spacing was a problem because of the set-up for the jump, though, which meant he’d need to shorten his glide into it (not comfortable, but not impossible) or move it further toward the center. Yuuri wanted to see if he could figure out how to shorten his full-ice serpentine pattern without ruining the aesthetic (which Victor would, of course, have feelings about).  
  
So he ran it, quickly, as is: step sequence into the quad Lutz-triple toe, and he added another double toe at the end. Sure enough, he was too close to the boards. At Worlds, he’d be nervous enough already; dreading a head-on collision with the boards would end up as a self-fulfilling prophecy if he didn’t start to train it out now. Fifteen minutes wasn’t much time, of course, but it was something to do.  
  
As he set up to try again, he saw Dima was preparing to try a jump, too. He watched as he lifted and spun into a tight quad toe loop, then double-footed the landing. Close, though. He’d have it consistently soon. That was a good jump to have in your roster; toe-loops were some of Yuuri’s favorites, useful to add into combinations —  
  
Oh.  
  
OH.  
  
No one had yet ratified a quad-quad combination at any competition. As far as Yuuri knew, no one was seriously practicing one. It was like the quad Axel — theoretically possible but practically improbable. The closest anyone had been so far was Victor’s exhibition attempt at a triple Axel-quad toe a few years ago that had ended in a stumble.  
  
Last summer, though, before Victor’s hip injury had stymied serious practice for a month, Yuuri had started to work on a quad-quad combination. They’d gone as far as practicing in a harness before Victor hadn’t been able to carry on, and then they’d abandoned the effort because the season started too quickly thereafter. Yuuri had barely managed to get the Lutz consistent on its own.  
  
Still, just as an exercise, it was worth thinking about. A quad Lutz-quad toe combination would be an enormous points boost. It would take advantage of Yuuri’s stamina and, if he could get it right, the speed that he could sometimes produce whirling out of a good Lutz. It would fit in the program as-is, too, without needing to cut back on the long glide in. And under the rules, it was the only way Yuuri could fit another quad into his short.  
  
He left the ice excited about the prospect, having run a few quad Lutz-triple toe loop combinations and a few separate quad toe loops just to work through it. Victor would be excited; he had loved the challenge of this over the summer.  
  
Except — oh. Over the summer, they had been practicing the quad-quad combinations side-by-side. Victor had wanted a quad flip-toe combo for his own repertoire, before his injury. If Yuuri did this combination successfully, it would put him dramatically ahead of Victor in technical points. The base score for a quad Lutz-quad toe was 23.9 points — ten points higher than Victor’s hard-fought quad loop-triple toe combo. The amount wasn’t insurmountable, of course, but it would be even trickier for him to take gold at Worlds.  
  
Yuuri shook his head, lacing up his shoes. That was useless to even think about, he realized. Victor wouldn’t want him to hold back any more than Yuuri would want Victor to hold himself back. He had wondered, more than once, what he would feel if he found out Victor had some new miracle up his sleeve — a quad Axel, perhaps. Yuuri could allow that he’d be jealous, but he thought he’d also be amazed and thrilled. If he mastered this combination, surely Victor would feel the same.  


* * *

  
When Yuuri returned, Victor was already home, pinned under Makkachin on the couch. “Save me!” he called, laughing. He had his head on the arm rest, Makkachin slouched happily over his entire chest, both paws on his shoulders.  
  
“No, you’re beyond my help,” Yuuri said, slowly peeling off his coat. He slipped on his house shoes. “You’ve been pupped. I’m afraid it’s permanent.”  
  
“Ahh, what a month for eternal commitments!”  
  
Yuuri laughed and walked over, drying the fog from his glasses with his soft T-shirt. He sat in the arm chair and watched Victor sit up, slowly, so that Makkachin moved gently into a curl on the other end of the couch. Even fresh off a travel day, he looked magnificent: his gray sweater swooped perfectly around his neck, already inviting Yuuri to lean in and nuzzle. “How was your flight?”  
  
“Good enough,” Victor said. “It got me here. How was practice?”  
  
“Good,” Yuuri said. “I wore them out, though.”  
  
Victor’s eyes sparkled. “It’s good for them. Good for me, too, since I need something to take the edge off your endless energy. I am but a poor old man, travel-weary and worn —“  
  
“Oh, is that so?” Yuuri said. “And here I thought you were a virile young newlywed, alone at home for the first night with his eager husband, who might —  
  
He didn’t manage to finish his sentence before Victor surged up from the couch and threw Yuuri over his shoulder, carrying him back to the bedroom and depositing him on their bed in a laughing heap. “Ah ha, oh, ha, you shouldn’t, I’ve had more katsudon than I deserve,” Yuuri admitted, rubbing his stomach.  
  
Victor shook his head and knelt on the bed, straddling Yuuri’s thighs. “No such thing," he said, and then bent to kiss him. Yuuri closed his eyes. “Tadaima,” Victor whispered.  
  
“Okaeri,” Yuuri murmured back, and then drew him in for another.


	3. Wednesday, 28 Dec. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An early morning call and an early morning at the rink.

The next morning, Victor’s phone rang just after 6:30 a.m. Normally, they both had their phones set to only allow emergency calls through during certain hours. Sleep times were sacred, part of their health regimen as professional athletes. So Yuuri woke up already panicked, certain that something catastrophic had happened.  
  
“It’s all right, love,” Victor said, rolling up to a sitting position. He reached for the phone with one hand and rubbed his face with the other. The bumps of his spine were visible even in the gray bedroom light. “It’s Yakov.” Before Yuuri could ask why that meant it was OK, Victor had greeted Yakov in Russian and was walking out of their room.  
  
Yuuri took a few minutes to calm down. He lay back and listened to his meditation app, then managed to scrape himself out of bed and into warmer clothing and his glasses before he followed Victor’s trajectory out to the living room. He was sitting in his robe by the kitchen counter, sipping a cup of tea, the phone face-down beside him.  
  
“Is everything all right?” Yuuri asked, leaning against the end of the counter.  
  
Victor nodded. Then, perhaps because Yuuri kept staring at him, he sighed and spoke. “He started calling me during Nationals. Irina goes out in the mornings, some kind of volunteer work. She doesn’t want him doing work-related things while his doctor says he has to avoid stress.” Victor’s smile was thin, his voice wry. “I count as work-related, so he can only call when she’s out.”  
  
There were too many things to unpack in those sentences for this early in the morning, but Yuuri could already tell he wasn’t going right back to bed. “What does he call about?”  
  
“Work!” Victor said, grinning. “He wants to talk through everyone’s programs, hear what’s happening at the rink. It sounds like he’s figured out YouTube a little, so he’s seen everyone’s programs.” Victor blinked. “Oh, I’m supposed to tell you good work on the quad Sal at your Nationals and to watch your elbow on the flip.”  
  
This was advice he’d already heard from Victor, so he nodded. “He just calls to chat, or — is he trying to coach?”  
  
Victor waved his hand, so-so. “Some days he wants to give me advice. Some times I think he just wants to know everyone’s doing OK.” He ran a hand through his hair, let his fingers rest at the nape of his neck. Yuuri shuffled over and leaned against him, felt Victor’s head rest against his own. “It’s OK,” he said. “The calls are fine. It’s good that he’s up to calling, yes?”  
  
“OK,” Yuuri said. “Wait, does he call every morning?” Victor nodded. “At 6:30?”  
  
“Give or take ten minutes.”  
  
Yuuri sighed. “Maybe you can get him to call later?”  
  
Victor shook his head, clearly amused by the idea. “He’ll never do it, if the request comes from me. I overslept one practice in 20 years, and he’s still got this idea that I’d sleep until noon if given the chance.”  
  
That made Yuuri laugh out loud. He could barely picture Victor sleeping in to that extent. “What time do you want to go in today?”  
  
“Pretty soon, actually. They clean the East Rink just before 8 when the early hockey practice finishes, so there’s green ice not long after.”  
  
“Magic words,” Yuuri said. “Let me clean up and get changed.”  
  
“I’ll take Makka out.”  
  
By the time he returned, Yuuri had breakfast ready for them both. Victor grinned like he’d won some new award, sinking into his chair with an enthusiastic, “I have missed you.”  
  
“Your turn tomorrow,” Yuuri reminded him, and Victor nodded, still smiling. “How was the walk?”  
  
“Refreshing,” he said, which likely meant it was negative 300 outside. Yuuri shivered just thinking about it. “Ready to get back to practice today? Ah, I guess I’m forgetting you’ve already been back to the rink! How was it?”  
  
Yuuri described stroking practice, complete with the funny text he’d received from Mila late the night before about ideas for next time. Victor gave him a long, thoughtful look. “You should run those,” he said.  
  
“Eh?” Yuuri looked up from his bowl of ohitashi, which he’d started making with sorrel just because it was plentiful in Russia, only to find that now he craved its vaguely lemony flavor. Victor had ordered some in their last load of groceries, along with two gigantic, expensive bags of the imported rice that Yuuri liked best. “Work through those drills today? I could, I guess.” He shrugged. After Nationals, he wasn’t sure his edges needed the most work, but practicing basics wasn’t really a waste of time.  
  
“No, I mean, you can run stroking practice for the others,” Victor said.  
  
Yuuri frowned. “What about Bogdan?”  
  
Bogdan Ivanovich Zaytsev was the closest thing Yakov had to an assistant, though no one would ever call him an assistant coach. He never traveled with the team, but he could be counted on for the minor tasks for which Yakov didn’t always have time. Bogdan was usually at the rink every day, and he would sometimes oversee group practices when Yakov was traveling, for instance. He didn’t yell or give instructions, but he offered feedback when asked and would tell people when to clear off the ice. Yuuri knew him mostly as the guy who would sometimes stay late, rustling a newspaper high in the bleachers, so that Victor (or Yuuri) weren’t skating alone. He’d sort of assumed that once they were back in St. Petersburg, Bogdan would be there to keep helping out.  
  
Victor shook his head. “Bogdan’s position is funded by the Federation, you know.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. “I… don’t think I did know, actually.”  
  
This made Victor pause. “Really? I — hm. I guess I thought we’d talked about this. Then again, you didn’t really get the usual orientation to the rink, did you?” They both grinned at that, remembering the rushed tour Victor had performed the year before. They hadn’t seen each other in two weeks — an eternity for a newly engaged couple — and had rushed out of the building into an embarrassing make-out session in Victor’s car.  
  
“Bogdan didn’t come up,” Yuuri said, and Victor laughed as he shook his head.  
  
“Well, he’ll work with Sima and the novices for now.”  
  
“That’s… interesting.”  
  
Victor was eating his bowl of cottage cheese in small, savoring bites. “Hm. Well. She’s got Federation money, too.”  
  
Serafima Volkov was a former student of Yakov’s who coached pairs, mostly novices, at the rink. She and Victor had been contemporaries briefly, when she was a senior skating singles after a career in junior pair skating, and Victor was newly in juniors. Neither had ever said a negative word about the other, but Yuuri had a sense that tension existed. He thought it had to do with how close Serafima was to several members of the Russian skating federation. “Does she want to move up, now that Yakov’s not here?”  
  
“Yakov will be back,” Victor said, a little too brightly. “So that’s not worth worrying about. And regardless, you’re the perfect fit for stroking practice. Twice a week?”  
  
“Oh.” Yuuri thought about it. Celestino had ever only required practice like that once a week, but Yuuri thought it wasn’t a bad idea. Plus, he didn’t mind coordinating it as long as it went like yesterday had, with everyone contributing ideas or brainstorming ways to improve certain moves. “OK.”  
  
And so it was that easy: Yuuri became the leader of the stroking practices, held twice a week at the Sports Champions Club where Yakov’s team practiced. On the way in that morning, they decided to make the announcement the next morning, a Thursday, to get the schedule started off right.  
  
Yuuri had been training next to Victor for more than a year, now, and he would hit his one-year anniversary of skating at the SCC within the next week. Still, that morning, walking up to the giant front facade, he felt a wave of intimidation all over again. It was one thing — one very huge, life-changing thing — to walk in with Victor Nikiforov, skating legend of Russia. It was something else to walk in with the lead coach of the Russian team.  
  
“Good suggestion on bringing the car,” Victor said, using his photo ID to unlock the front door. “It’s a bit more brisk than I thought. Wouldn’t want you catching a cold before Four Continents!”  
  
Yuuri laughed, or tried, but the cold air seemed to suck his breath away. He staggered inside after Victor, cleaning the fog from his glasses in the near dark of the empty lobby. The stillness surprised him. Then again, it wasn’t even eight yet. Yuuri had been the first into and out of his home rink before, but the SCC felt like the kind of place that never really slept, that could never be completely empty.  
  
After all, the SCC was more than just a rink. Really, it met the definition of palace for an ice skater, with three incredible rinks under one gigantic roof. The main rink was open all day for public skating, except when it was covered over to accommodate traveling shows or basketball games or used for professional hockey or skating shows. The smaller side rinks were by appointment or membership in the mornings, mostly for novices and some limited group classes. The East Rink, which was slightly larger than Ice Castle’s rink and boasted a glorious wall of windows, was basically closed in the afternoon for various members of Yakov’s skate club to work. The skate club also had access to private gym facilities, circuit training, a variety of athletic classes, a dance studio, and a sauna, along with passes to the small cafeteria and priority with the facility’s trainers.  
  
Even with all of that space, though, ice time was at a premium. This was reminiscent of Detroit, where every hour of time at the rink had cost precious dollars and meant, often, negotiating with other eager skaters. At the SCC, they competed with two local hockey teams, a small crew of private coaches and very young students, and a dozen other athletes training for various amateur ice competitions. Yakov’s athletes had some priority, but they still didn’t get all the ice all of the time, and they mainly kept to the side rinks. The center rink ice was too hard, kept at hockey-like temperatures to prevent it getting torn up from over use. Yuuri avoided using it whenever possible.  
  
Yuuri had two shared hours on the East Rink booked every afternoon with the other senior skaters. In the mornings, he could use his club pass to skate on the West Rink, the smallest of the three, during member-only skating time, which worked well unless the ice was crowded. This was actually hard to predict because none of the other skaters seemed to schedule themselves more than a week in advance for anything (except for the sacrosanct afternoon practices).  
  
This drove Yuuri a little crazy. He liked to set out his planner and schedule as far in advance as he could. In Detroit, they’d scheduled by semesters, giant 16-week blocks of time. His new rink mates considered this some kind of temptation for chaos, or something — Yuri had tried to explain it by translating some common Russian phrase for him: “You can make plans, but God makes her own, you know?”  
  
“I didn’t know you were religious,” Yuuri had said, taken slightly aback.  
  
“Not religious,” Yuri’d said, scoffing. “Russian.”  
  
This superstition hadn’t stopped Yuuri from penciling in his usual schedule weeks in advance. Before Yakov’s heart attack, Yuuri had traveled in a pretty straight line through every day: wake up (usually an hour after Victor), eat, stretch, run, grab some ice time or work out or cross train at the rink, have a quick lunch with Victor, rest or run choreography in the dance studio while Victor worked with Yakov, then join senior practice time before either walking or riding home with Victor. Once or twice a week, he and Victor splurged on an hour of evening ice time reserved for only the two of them in the East rink, if they could fit between hockey practices. It felt both like a luxury and like not quite enough time. Still, for a year, he’d been lucky enough to get at least an hour every single day of his coach’s undivided attention on the ice and anywhere from three to four more hours of on-ice practice in. Most skaters would kill for such an arrangement.  
  
That morning, he thought maybe the days would just start earlier. While Victor took a little time on the clean ice, Yuuri stretched and did his usual morning yoga in the narrow path between the boards and the back wall. As much he might love being on the ice, early morning skates for him were usually a waste of time and a good way  to tempt injury. Phichit had once bought him a mug declaring “First, coffee,” and that wasn’t entirely inaccurate.  
  
While Victor skated, the building woke up around them, slowly filling with the thumps and clatter of additional patrons and skaters. Yuuri could hear the echoes of voices in the connected locker rooms, and he wasn’t surprised when he saw Serafima peeking out. He finished his last pose and then rose to his feet, pausing briefly to watch Victor. He’d been working on the step sequence for his short program, ironing out the final steps that led into the jump he’d missed at the GPF. As Yuuri watched, he whirled straight up into a gorgeous triple loop-triple toeloop combination, practice for the quad he’d fallen out of in Marseille.  
  
He knew Victor would stay on the ice for a bit, now, but start cooling down soon so he could get through his own gym session before coaching started in earnest. That meant Yuuri had time to sneak away to the cafeteria, where he first found caffeine and then a small, protein-filled snack for himself and for Victor. As he was leaving, he ran into Katya and Ilya, who were studying together in a quiet corner over steaming mugs of tea.  
  
Before, he might have nodded at them in recognition if they’d looked up at him first. Yuuri had never been particularly good with socializing, even with other skaters. Now, he felt like he had to greet them, like their trial-by-fire at the GPF had built a bond he shouldn’t ignore. So he carried his coffee, fruit, and protein muffins over to their table and said a quiet good morning.  
  
“Yuuri!” Katya hopped up and embraced him. “I realized I didn’t say yesterday — congratulations on your medal!”  
  
“Thank you,” he said, laughing through his feeling of being startled. “And, ah, well done to you, too.”  
  
Katya beamed, but Ilya frowned. “I fell,” he said.  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “I’ve done that before. A lot, actually. But you got back up.”  
  
“See?” Katya said.  
  
“Are you here to practice? Victor is going to the dance studio, I think.”  
  
Katya slid back into her chair and shook her head. “We just finished work with Sima on our twists.” Yuuri was relieved to hear that she was still helping the juniors, even if, as Victor had said, there might be additional tension in Yakov’s absence. “Now we have another hour of homework, but then we’re going to the gym. Do you work out here?”  
  
“Oh, ah, yes,” Yuuri said. This was a comfortable conversation topic, at least. Yuuri had just spent a week in Japan, and both Minako and Nishigori had been critical of his current fitness plan. “Actually, I was planning to go in today sometime, too. I’ve been experimenting with adding more strength training as a way to get more lift on my jumps.”  
  
Katya and Ilya shared a quick look. “About what time will you be in the gym?” Ilya asked.  
  
That was how, later that morning, he managed to get himself an audience of three (Katya, Ilya, and Dima, who they’d run into somewhere and invited along) for his workout.  
  
As they’d left Marseille, Yuuri had promised Victor that he’d help with the younger skaters, that he’d assist him in his coaching enterprise. They’d left the details vague, aside from the new promise of leading stroking practice. Maybe this was another way he could help, Yuuri thought. He’d always been better at showing than telling, and if they wanted to see the various ways that he cross-trained, well, that was easy enough. He said as much to the juniors, who seemed to take it as an unexpected kindness.  
  
“It’s nothing,” Yuuri said, drying his face with a towel. “We’re rink mates. Sharing is normal.”  
  
The juniors all exchanged a glance, and then Katya hugged him again before they all scurried down the hall toward a class meeting. The juniors were all enrolled in the St. Petersburg Champions School, which Victor had reassured Yuuri several times was a real school, not something made up. Yuri was also a student. The classes met formally in a school building nearby a few times a week, allowing half-days for training, and the students worked at the Champions Club full-time on the other days. Those who came to the SPCS from out of town boarded with the school, though Yuuri wasn’t exactly sure where they lived or how their expenses worked.  
  
He decided he’d ask Victor more at lunch, and started walking down the long carpeted hallway toward the windowless basement cafeteria. Normally, he met Victor here when they didn’t have time to pre-pack lunch. He was, in fact, waiting when Yuuri walked in, leaning against the wall by the door and reading something on his phone.  
  
“Hello,” Yuuri greeted.  
  
“Hello!” Victor said in Japanese. He’d continued to work on learning Japanese even after they’d left Hasetsu for St. Petersburg the year before, though his progress had been slow. Yuuri knew he listened to language lessons on his phone sometimes when he was working out in the mornings, and he liked to practice on Yuuri, particularly at the rink. It was useful to have a language that no one else could understand. “Are you ready for lunch? I might have less time than usual today.”  
  
As they gathered a few things from the line, Victor explained that he was waiting on a phone call return from someone who handled the travel paperwork for the Russian team. “Ah, and I also should drop in and talk with the maintenance supervisor, since Yakov mentioned a few specifications that they need to incorporate on our rink.”  
  
Yuuri smiled over at Victor after they’d settled their bill. “You need to work through lunch, you’re saying?” Victor nodded, biting into an orange slice. “OK,” Yuuri said. “Don’t worry about me.”  
  
Victor sighed and looked immensely relieved. “Thank you,” he said, kissing Yuuri’s temple. “I’ll see you at practice?”  
  
“Sounds good. Do you want any help with the juniors’ session today?”  
  
“Oh,” he said, surprise melting into a smile. “That would be wonderful, actually! You could watch the side-by-side jumps for Katya and Ilya, maybe?”  
  
Yuuri nodded and waved him off. He spent ten minutes sending texts to Mari and Yuuko, both of whom were just finishing up their work for the day. While he was laughing over a bizarre meme Yuuko had shared, Yuri and Mila joined him, both carrying soup.  
  
“Settle an argument,” Mila said. “Where’s the best place to buy good soakers?”  
  
That debate lasted the rest of lunch, as they discussed the different definitions of good: serious and drab or fun and weird. After lunch, and after buying two ridiculous new sets of soakers online, Yuuri made his way back to the East Rink, where the juniors took the ice for their hour-and-a-half session starting at 1. Katya and Ilya were already there, warming up together by marking jumps as they ran through their free program. Yuuri wasn’t sure what advice he could provide that would be useful to anyone, but he was happy just to watch, to compare these practices with what he’d seen on the videos from Nationals.  
  
It also gave him a chance to watch Victor actually coaching. Right now, it reminded him a bit of the days after Yuuri had won the Onsen on Ice show. Victor looked thoughtful as he watched the other skaters, mind clearly evaluating what he saw before him. He gave each skater his laser-focused individual attention for at least twenty minutes during the session. Yuuri felt intimidated on the juniors’ behalf by the end.  
  
But it went well. Everyone seemed solid, and they were listening attentively to Victor’s advice. It put Yuuri in a good mood to start the seniors session, a mood that was only enhanced by Victor challenging him throughout the practice.  
  
Maybe the new schedule would be OK, he thought.


	4. Thursday, 29 Dec. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short day that feels long.

A day later, he was feeling less certain.  
  
The next day was basically a repeat of the day before. Yakov’s call woke him again at an unreasonable hour, even though Victor rushed the ringing phone out to the living room. Yuuri was tired enough that morning to go back to sleep, at least, stirring when Victor sat on the edge of the bed. “I have to be there at 8. Do you want a ride in?”  
  
Yuuri did, but he also understood that would mean hauling himself out of their warm bed with no delay. It nearly took him too long to even decide, which meant that 20 minutes later, he was trying to put on his coat and drink his coffee at the same time. Victor took pity on him and held the mug while Yuuri struggled into his longest, heaviest coat. “The car is in the garage,” Victor said, almost patiently. “I’m not going to make you walk today.”  
  
“Hate being cold without skates,” Yuuri muttered, and Victor just nodded and pressed a kiss to his cheek before they walked outside.  
  
Yuuri had meant to spend his morning with stretching and conditioning, but instead he spent it hovering over a long text chain with Victor’s agent, who was now also his agent, about media requests. He’d done every interview that the JSF press people had set up for him in Osaka, but apparently other requests had been trickling in. Polina, Victor’s — no, their agent, had been holding back the list until after All-Japan was finished. Now, though, she meant business, and Yuuri knew better than to ignore her.  
  
After an hour of scheduling and another hour of responding to screened questions (for which she would again screen his answers), he was happy to burn off some useless frustration in the gym. Next, it was time for stroking practice. The juniors rushed in from a morning school session, bubbly and wide-eyed and hungry for advice. They spent an hour on old exercises Yuuri remembered and impromptu individual sessions, with more demonstration than Yuuri had really been prepared for.  
  
With stroking practice over, Yuuri texted Victor to see about lunch, but found out he was tied up dealing with his own list of missed interviews from Polina. He ate again with Mila and Yuri. After that, he did an hour of off-ice choreography work and then wandered into the juniors’ scheduled practice, where Victor immediately made him a sounding board. After spending two hours helping the juniors from the sidelines, Yuuri found practicing his own routines to be a relief.  
  
Victor had to stay late to organize paperwork, which meant Yuuri stayed late. He wound up spending an hour with Georgi, Yuri, and Dima on the ice, all of them trying to do their best imitation of Christophe’s step sequence from his World Junior Championship. (Georgi had brought up the recording on his phone, mentioning that Dima’s costume reminded him of Christophe’s. The resemblance wasn’t remarkable, but the steps were).  
  
They arrived home so late that Makkachin nearly knocked them over, and Victor spent twenty good minutes apologizing to her while trying to order dinner.  
  
They chatted about Georgi while they waited. Neither of them had seen much of Georgi recently; Yuuri had seen him more socially than at the rink since moving to St. Petersburg. After his poor showing in the Grand Prix the year before, Georgi had contemplated retirement. He had also, according to Victor, contemplated changing coaches, which was a slight the team hadn’t taken well. Now, his retirement was unofficial in some ways — he had competed at Nationals this year, taking seventh, and was considering competing in the final Cup of Russia competition between Euros and Worlds.  Instead of gearing up for another high-competition season, however, Georgi had decided to pursue a college degree in Russian literature. He was at the rink on weekends mostly, now, and had spent the fall doing limited early morning training and leading some small mini-camps.  
  
“I think he’ll be relieved when I retire,” Victor said, while they waited on their food.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
Victor rolled his eyes. “The great rivalry can finally be put to rest.”  
  
Georgi, at his best, had never scored within striking distance of Victor. If Yuuri knew that just from his years of being a superfan, it must have been apparent to both Victor and Georgi over the years. In fact, Yuuri knew of only two entities that thought a serious rivalry existed between Victor Nikiforov and Georgi Popovich: Georgi's online fans and Yakov Feltsman.  
  
“Do you want to have him over sometime? Or go out, maybe?” Yuuri asked.  
  
Victor shrugged. “Sure. It’s been nice to see him at the rink in the mornings, but I don’t know when things are going to calm down. ”  
  
Yuuri rubbed the back of his neck, thoughts darting to the long day they’d just finished. “Yes. The new schedule is…”  
  
“More,” Victor suggested, and Yuuri agreed.  
  
More was certainly one way to put it. Less was another. Yuuri had spent all day at the rink, and so had Victor, and yet it didn't feel like it had been a full day of practice or together at all. It felt interrupted, still unsettled.

"I've got tape to review. Want to come?" Victor asked, pointing at the television. He'd been watching himself on video for so long, he still called it "tape," as though a physical cassette might be hidden in his bag. Yuuri thought it was an adorable habit, and probably one he'd picked up from Yakov.

"OK," he agreed. He settled on his end of the couch to send Phichit middle-of-the-night messages while Victor studied short videos of the juniors practicing their jumps. This didn't feel so different, at least. Makkachin bumbled over and tucked herself against the bottom of the couch, and Yuuri drew his aching feet up and onto the cushion. Victor reached over without looking and began to firmly rub the arch, and Yuuri sighed and closed his eyes. More, he thought. Maybe he could get used to more.


	5. Friday, 30 Dec. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That long Friday before a holiday weekend...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late post tonight!
> 
> I should've mentioned earlier, but text messages are sender in bold, everything in italics. So Yuuri telling Victor goodnight would be:  
>  _ **Yuuri:** Good night!_

By the next day, though, Yuuri had a different word in mind for the new schedule: It sucked.   
  
The juniors’ interest in him was as surprising as it was intense. From the moment he arrived at the rink that morning (having again caught a ride with Victor), he had a junior skater ready to follow him around. They mimicked his workout, observed his mid-morning skating practice, caught him in the hall to chat about how he liked his blades, and (in Dima’s case) just wandered over, looking for reassurance. Yuuri didn’t really mind providing any of that some of the time, but he couldn’t provide them all to everyone all of the time. It felt like the GPF again, only it was just a regular practice day.  
  
“They’re not used to sharing,” Mila told him, when Yuuri had decided to take brief refuge from his ducklings by taking her out for a mid-morning protein shake.   
  
He rubbed his hands together, regretting leaving his gloves back in his locker. They were waiting for the juice bar attendant to finish their drinks, sitting at a comically bright orange metal table in the corner of the little cafe. Mila liked this place, and it was perhaps no wonder: everything was as bright as she was. “They’re not used to sharing their coach?” Yuuri asked, brow furrowing.  
  
“No, sharing from a senior,” she said. “Yakov never encouraged older skaters to mix with the younger ones. He liked to use the seniors — mostly Vitya — as examples for us, but we weren’t supposed to bother them with questions.”  
  
“I forget you were in juniors here," Yuuri said, shaking his head.  
  
She smiled. “Where else would I have been? Moscow? Pah.” She waved her hand like avoiding a bad smell.  
  
The barista called their names, pronouncing Yuuri’s in the short sharp Russian way, and Mila stood to fetch their drinks. Yuuri thought about what she’d said, trying to picture how things had worked before. He’d had little interaction with the junior skaters until the GPF this year, but he’d always thought that was his own fault for being shy.  
  
“Why wouldn’t he want the juniors to work with the seniors?”  
  
Mila shrugged, handing over his bright green juice. “They’re potential competitors.” Yuuri stared, waiting for her to laugh, but she just shrugged. “Well, it’s basically true. Natalya’s only, what, 4 years younger than I am? She’ll be in seniors before I’m done with it, so we’ll probably compete some day.”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri said, slowly, “but…” He wasn’t sure how to best put this into words, so he stared down at his sweating plastic cup. A small chunk of ice floated in the top, and Yuuri poked at it with his straw. “I don’t compete against other people, when I skate. Not really.”  
  
“Oh no?” Mila smiled. “Just Vitya?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said. “I mean, yes — other skaters challenge me, force me to do my best, but I don’t feel like I’m in competition with them. It’s not like, ah, wrestling or something, where we have to fight each other down to the mats.”  
  
“Or the mattresses?” She grinned. “Would you still pick Vitya as your coach, if it was wrestling?”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes but laughed in spite of himself. He had to remember that, for all she seemed his equal on the ice, Mila was just 19 and probably not at all interested in the quasi philosophical musings of someone as old as Yuuri. It made him miss Yuuko, suddenly, and even Mari. He’d have to text them more often. “All right. You’re right, enough serious talk.” They pivoted to talking about costumes for the upcoming season, instead. Mila had changed her outfit slightly for Europeans; her medals at the GPF and Russian Nationals had brought a nice round of interested sponsors. Euros would be harder: two of the top women in the world had sat out the Grand Prix this year, but both would be at the competition in Ostrava. Mila seemed to be taking that in stride, though, so they kept their talk focused on lighter aspects, chatting about the possibility of gloves for Yuuri’s costume as they arrived back at the rink, just in time for lunch: perfect.   
  
Their talk was still enlightening, at least for Yuuri. He hadn’t considered the cultural implications of acting as a mentor for his younger rinkmates. The rink cultures he’d grown up in, first in Hasetsu and then in Detroit, had been collegial, even communal. People had shared freely: tips, ideas, music, spare accessories. The Russian group wasn’t like that, for all that they were friendly and close. Yuuri might not have Victor’s expertise and confidence to share, but perhaps they could at least see a model for a different kind of coaching and skating from him.  
  
 ** _Yuuchan_** _: omg you’re warming their cold Russian hearts! Yuu-chan it’s exactly like your childhood dreams come true! ❤️💕_  
 _ **Yuuri** : thanks??? i guess????_  
  
That afternoon, at least, the side rinks were quieter than usual. The juniors had left, taking advantage of a school holiday to go to some new-release movie together; most of the other regulars were gone already for the long New Year’s celebration that started the next night. Only Victor and Yuuri, of their crew, were left by the end of the day.   
  
Yuuri reveled in the quiet. His jumps were steadier, his step sequence was finally clicking again. It felt like taking a breath of cool air after a stifling work out. He realized he hadn’t practiced in such quiet since he left Ice Castle before Japanese nationals.  
  
“What’s on your mind?” Victor asked, when they met at the boards after a long stretch of individual practice.  
  
There were two other skaters on the rink, all older, private students for a respected local mid-level coach. They had been serious and focused all afternoon, never bothering either Victor or Yuuri as they’d practiced, but Yuuri still didn’t want to have this conversation in front of anyone else. So he slipped into Japanese, speaking slowly to help Victor understand. “The juniors.” He explained, haltingly, how rushed his days had felt since returning. “I don’t mind helping — I want to!” he said. “But I think I might need more of a, ah, trial period, too?”  
  
Victor grinned. “They are exhausting, aren’t they?” He gestured that they should move toward the exit, and so Yuuri followed him off the ice. They both put on hard guards and walked to the bench where they’d stashed their shoes and bags, and Victor sat down to start unlacing his own skates. Yuuri was surprised by this; he could have easily gone for another hour, but Victor looked wiped out. Of course, if Yuuri was feeling worn, Victor must be completely done in.  
  
So he sat, too, and started working on his own boot laces. Victor spoke in quiet English. “What about — I don’t know whether to encourage this, but you could stay home some mornings, couldn’t you? You’d still have to work, but we have enough space for that.”  
  
The thought was as attractive as it was practical. Yuuri could do his yoga or even some calisthenics in the comfort of their home as easily, perhaps more easily, than he could at the SCC. That would buy him a few quiet, solitary mornings a week, and still give him time to get to the SCC in time to help at junior practices.   
  
“The look on your face is the most blatant ‘yes, please,' I’ve seen outside of the bedroom,” Victor said, probably trying to sound neutral or curious. The way he dissolved into laughter when Yuuri rolled his eyes and blushed gave him away. He ducked his head to concentrate on his laces. “Try it for a week, and we’ll talk.”  
  
“Yes, OK,” Yuuri agreed. He worked at the particularly tight lace on his left boot. “Do you, ah, have plans for tonight?”  
  
Victor huffed a small laugh, and when Yuuri looked over, he was batting his eyes. “Why, would you like me to have some plans?”  
  
Yuuri’s hands were cold and sore from tugging on his boots, and he’d started to get the sweat-sticky feeling that came from cooling off rapidly after a good workout, but he still barely held himself back from leaping on Victor and pinning him to the narrow bench. He settled for licking his lips. “I would,” he said. “I do.”  
  
Victor’s eyes flickered down, then widened, staring at Yuuri’s mouth. “Hurry, then.”  
  
Now Yuuri huffed a laugh. “You’d better buy me dinner first.”  
  
They wound up grabbing an early dinner from a little hut that served decent stuffed pancakes and (for Victor) wass. They ate the still-warm pancakes sitting on the floor in the apartment, Makkachin whining gently as Yuuri finished the last bite of spiced meat from his. Victor offered Yuuri a bite of his bacon-potato soup, which was delicious but definitely too heavy.  
  
“It’s a miracle, what you can eat,” Yuuri said, stretching out on the floor with his hands folded over his stomach. Makkachin snuggled beside him, sniffing his hands for traces from dinner.   
  
“Mm, you should have seen me as a teenager. Like Yura, but taller.” He grinned unapologetically, then took a new bite of soup.  
  
“How is he doing, this week?”  
  
Victor shrugged. “You’ve been in practice. What do you think?”  
  
Yuuri rubbed Makkachin’s head and thought back to their ice time. He’d watched Yuri from the corner of his eye during senior open times, and he’d watched him more openly during edge practices, of course. He was still a graceful, powerful skater, but he was struggling more than Yuuri had ever seen from him. “Did Yakov have him see a doctor about his growth?”  
  
“Sure,” Victor said. “It’s all in his folio. All of his medical.”  
  
“Did you read it?” Yuuri wasn’t sure what to hope for, here. Celestino had kept some medical notes on Yuuri, he knew — general figures to turn in for competitions, like height, weight, age, and allergies (none), but also a quick medical history about injuries and strains. Going through the same information with Victor a year ago had felt strange, somehow, like offering more of himself than he would have if they’d been simply friends, or simply lovers, and not entangled professionally.  
  
He wondered what Yuri felt about having all of Yakov’s notes — his medical information, but also the personal tidbits that any coach would collect — shared with Victor. Yuri wasn’t exactly a private person, since no one in their sport could be, really, but he was a teenager, still struggling with his place and his identity.   
  
“I read some,” Victor said, shrugging. “They ruled out Osgood-Schlatter, but he’s definitely had growing pains.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. He didn’t doubt that, but somehow hearing it was jarring. He didn’t like to think of Yuri in pain. “Does he need to go back?”  
  
“He wouldn’t go on my word,” Victor said, one hand arcing up, an elegant shrug. “Honestly, I think he’s down about his placement at the GPF. A good showing at Euros will probably cure most of what ails him — and you know he likes a challenge.”  
  
Yuuri smiled, closing his eyes. “If only we knew a skater ready to provide one.”  
  
“If only.”  
  
That night, they went to bed together earlier than they went to sleep. They'd never really struggled to find time for intimacy. Victor was quick to tell anyone who would listen that they had intimate moments on the ice all the time -- a phrasing that still made Yuuri blush, even if he felt deeply the truth of it. Sex wasn't exactly hard to fit into their schedules, either. Still, it was nice to take some time with each other, that evening, and Yuuri grinned up at Victor when they finished. "I told you I had plans for you tonight."

Victor smiled back. He looked truly relaxed, as carefree as Yuuri had seen him since the night they'd been married. Had it barely been two weeks? "I may yet be converted to your idea of planning, if this is the dividend I earn."

"For the rest of my life," Yuuri said, then felt himself blush.

Victor, though, looked at him clearly and seriously. "For the rest of our lives," he said, and kissed him. 


	6. Saturday, 31 Dec. 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days in one! Two years in one!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The one-day-to-one-chapter theme breaks down a bit for the next few, so good news! Two days in one!  
> Bad news (?): This one is shorter than the rest, even with two days put together.

They did at least get to spend most of the next day together, and not all of it was work. After a bit of ice time in the morning, they celebrated New New Year’s Eve with the rest of the Russian skating team. This was a tradition, one Yuuri had taken in the year before for the first time. Most of the country seemed to spend New Year’s Eve having a family dinner and watching the president’s annual address. At the SCC, family was redefined.   
  
All of the SCC regular members, including the hockey teams and the other skaters, were invited to a celebration in the East Rink. Its floor-to-ceiling windows allowed them a perfect view onto the river for the fireworks display. Just for the night, ice was covered with a wooden floor, which meant they could walk out in street shoes. Several of the hockey players dragged in chairs from the cafeteria and lounge, and the coaches provided a buffet of comfort foods and treats. Victor’s contributions all came from a local caterer: a large pan of roasted chicken, a surprisingly large bowl of caviar and tiny white toasts, and a gigantic box of tangerines. Yuuri found the rest of the food hard to navigate, but he gamely tried what Victor pointed out, including the Olivier (traditional bologna-egg-and-potato salad), beetroot salad, and something that seemed to translate as “herring under fur” but did not, as far as he could tell, involve any actual mammals. He avoided the meat jello (and watched Yuri demolish two squares of it) and accepted open-faced cured fish sandwiches from both Mila and Ilya.  
  
“Is it weird that everyone sees smoked fish and thinks of me?” Yuuri asked, taking a seat by Victor on the bleachers.   
  
“It’s not my first connection.” He looked over Yuuri’s plate. “I don’t know about this.”  
  
Yuuri sighed, not looking forward to a coach’s lecture on his nutritional choices. “It’s a holiday!”  
  
“It’s missing something,” Victor said, and then produced a small paper bag. Yuuri balanced his plate on his knees long enough to open the bag. Inside, he saw a tall plastic carry-out container with Cyrillic lettering in black marker on the top. He glanced at Victor, who was smiling expectantly, and then pulled the container out. It was warm to the touch and held noodle soup.   
  
“Is it really…?”  
  
Victor nodded. “Toshikoshi soba! I wouldn’t want you to have anything but the best of luck in the New Year, now, would I?”  
  
Yuuri set the container down and pried off the lid. Sure enough, inside he saw long soba noodles floating in broth with a few thin-cut vegetables and strips of fried tofu. It had been his family’s tradition to eat it last during their New Year’s Eve dinner each year since Yuuri was a child. “Thank you.” He smiled at Victor through the wisps of steam rising from the soup. “This is very thoughtful.”  
  
Victor beamed. “I was going to try and get your mother to ship me some of hers somehow, but she told me you liked the instant soba well enough that I didn’t need to bother. This seemed like a good compromise.”  
  
“It’s wonderful,” Yuuri assured him. Just the smell of the broth warmed him. “Can I sneak my furry herring on to your plate so I have room for this?”  
  
He laughed. “Give it to Zhora. He loves herring.”  
  
The rest of the night went by in a flash. Victor and the rest of the coaches all circulated around the party, talking amongst themselves and making sure everyone was having a good time. Yuuri could remember Yakov doing the same thing the year before. It had been probably the the first time he’d ever seen Yakov outside of a skating competition, and he could remember sitting mostly in the bleachers and staring at his phone, trying to stay out of sight, for most of the evening.  
  
This year, the other skaters sought him out immediately. Katya dragged him to what she was calling the team table, which was really couple of gym mats spread on the ground near the windows. Yuuri sat cross-legged, facing the windows, and ate his soup while members of the team rotated in and out of his orbit. He met Ilya’s friends from the hockey team, talked about Moscow versus St. Petersburg traditions with Dima, and heard all of the relevant gossip from Mila. He accepted a glass of vodka from Victor when he stopped by, and after that, he accepted an invitation to dance from Mila and Natalya. They were taking turns as a group, throwing out their best moves, when Victor rejoined them all.   
  
“There’s champagne,” he said, “and I’ll turn a blind eye for the next half hour.” The younger skaters made a beeline for the under-supervised drinks table. Victor handed Yuuri a glass, smiling. “How many of these do I need to provide to get a private dance show later?”  
  
“You didn’t have to provide this one to get that.” Yuuri clinked his glass with Victor’s. “But it never hurts your chances.”  
  
“To be totally clear, if I throw up in the next five minutes, it’s about you two, not the drinks,” Yuri said, still curled on the floor by the windows. He was sipping from a glass that looked suspiciously clear.  
  
“Have you ever done a quad with a hangover, Yura? No? Don’t try it tomorrow," Victor said.  
  
Yuuri grinned. “When did you try that, oh Voice of Experience?”  
  
“I was, maybe, 16 or 17. Not quads then, but a triple Axel was enough. More than enough.” Victor shook his head. “Yakov made me go outside, in the freezing cold, and wash my skates down with a bucket.” He shivered.   
  
“Did you learn your lesson?” Yuri asked.  
  
Victor laughed. “No. I suppose I learned about timing.”  
  
“Phichit and I went to one practice in Detroit after we’d stayed up the entire night before at a party," Yuuri said. “I fell asleep on the bench, just tipped over sideways and decided I couldn’t go any further, with one skate on and one off. Phichit took the ice, nearly threw up, fell over and gave himself a black eye with his own fist.”  
  
Yuri’s eyes were like saucers. “What’d your coach say?”  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “Not much. It was his party. Plus I think he was pretty hungover, too.” In fact, he thought Celestino had probably wanted to yell at them both, but he’d been laughing so hard by the end of the disastrous morning that no lecture had ever really happened.  
  
“You manage to pick real winners for your coaches, huh?” Yuri said, but his tone was on the warm side of teasing.   
  
“I, for one, celebrate your excellent taste,” Victor said, kissing Yuuri’s temple dramatically.  
  
“Ah, newlyweds!” Georgi crooned from nearby. “You’re an inspiration to us all for the new year!”  
  
At the end of the night, after Yuuri tried and failed to understand more than a few words of the presidential address, after the fireworks and the kissing at midnight and the wired-and-tired energy as they all pitched in to clean up the rink, Victor and Yuuri gave Yuri a ride home.   
  
“Really, though,” Victor said, as Yuri climbed out of the car. “Don’t come in tomorrow. We’ll start again Tuesday.”  
  
“Whatever," Yuri said, then paused just outside the car door. “Thanks.”   
  
Victor drove them home, hands steady on the wheel. He’d had much less to drink than the rest of them, and no one had really drunk to excess. Yuuri felt only the slightest bit tipsy, more of a relaxed, warm feeling than anything else. “Are you worried about him?” he asked as they neared their street.  
  
“Yurio? No, he seemed fine.”  
  
“That’s not what I meant.”  
  
“I know,” Victor admitted. “Yakov is worried,” he said, after a long pause. They drove into the underground garage, which was the major amenity of Victor’s building, as far as Yuuri was concerned. Once the car was parked, Victor turned it off but didn’t move immediately. “He’ll need to do better at Euros.”  
  
“He’s 16. He could have an off year,” Yuuri said, then laughed. “Ah, what am I saying? Never mind.”  
  
Victor brushed his fingers against Yuuri’s cheek. They were surprisingly warm. “Well, speaking from 13 years in his future, an off year would be OK. But remembering what it felt like to be 16…”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri agreed. “He’ll do OK, in Ostrava.”  
  
Victor nodded, but he didn’t say anything. “Let’s go home. We can sleep in a little tomorrow, all right?”  
  
“Yes, coach,” Yuuri said, grinning, and took Victor’s hand as they walked inside.

 

* * *

**Sun. Jan 1**

* * *

  
They all slept in the next day (even Yakov, apparently), which gave Yuuri a chance to call home. He’d mailed his nengajō while he’d been home before Nationals. It had felt strange to send one to his parents while living again, however briefly, at their home, but he was glad the postcard had arrived now when they were apart again.  
  
While he talked, Victor ate leftover Olivier for breakfast and chimed in when the conversation turned to English. He’d sent extravagant Christmas and New Year’s gifts for the whole family, and they took the time to thank him again. Yuuri noticed his mother was wearing the new sweater Victor had sent, and it warmed him more thoroughly than even the soup the night before.  
  
Somehow, speaking to his family on the holiday made him feel both further away and closer to them. Even after he’d hung up, he kept thinking about it. Here he was, at his own home, celebrating in his own way with his own husband. He was all grown up, and he could understand, now, a new facet of his own parents: was this what it was like to stumble, overnight and accidentally, into adulthood?  
  
Victor, next to him, kept eating his salad straight out of the serving container. He wore a shirt that said Flutz you! and, Yuuri knew, had on a pair of Hello Kitty underwear (a gift, meant as a gag, from Mila for his birthday) beneath his track pants. When he caught Yuuri looking at him, he grinned, a tiny piece of meat stuck between his teeth, which made Yuuri crack up.  
  
“Ah, sausage,” Yuuri managed, forgetting the English for the type of meat in the salad. He gestured toward Victor’s mouth.  
  
“I could be up for that,” Victor said, and Yuuri cracked up again.  
  
Well. Maybe it wasn’t totally adulthood, but it was lovely, nonetheless.


	7. Tuesday, 2 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to training, and Victor gives a history lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not at all critical to the plot, but I realized after my last post that I posted the wrong revision of the chapter. It only added about 5 lines of text at the end of Dec. 31, but if you want a little more V + Y dialog in your life, it's there!  
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, too! You're all quadrupel Axels.

Once the holiday was done, training started again in earnest. The younger skaters grumbled a bit because the Russian New Year holiday was still being celebrated, but no one really seemed to expect they’d have more time off. It was the skating season, after all.  
  
Victor had decided he would need to spend his lunch time making calls and handling administrative duties. Bogdan had not returned to his previous assisting roles, so Victor was in charge of everything administrative for Yakov’s internationally competitive skaters. “Apparently, the Federation never takes a holiday,” Victor said, grimly, before kissing Yuuri good-bye that morning. “We can at least always have dinner together!”  
  
That was something to look forward to, honestly, so Yuuri did. He spent Monday morning after the holiday at home, preserving some privacy by doing yoga and calisthenics, before he found his way to the rink. Predictably, one of the juniors was waiting to ambush him, but that morning it was Katya with a quick, cheerful question about technique for a double Axel. He used it as an excuse to warm up on the ice and practice some footwork while Katya and Ilya drilled their side-by-side jumps at the other end. It was companionable, and he called out approval whenever they asked or seemed to need it.   
  
Still, the ice felt different when he was practicing without a coach at his side. Victor still did one-on-one sessions. The trouble was, now he did them for everyone. All of the skaters he worked with had at least one one-hour session a week with Victor’s undivided time and attention in addition to the daily group skates. His days were more predictable than Yuuri’s, actually: Victor spent the early morning doing his own practice, then switched to coaching duties. He dropped in on cross-training or choreography sessions, then met whoever the day’s lucky skater was on the East Rink for a practice hour. The rink wasn’t completely closed during these sessions, but by custom and courtesy, the other professional skaters worked on the West Rink during these individual times. After lunch, he ran the group sessions in the afternoons, then snuck in his own gym sessions before they headed home together.  
  
Yuuri’s scheduled solo days were now Sunday, but he often got a little extra attention throughout the week on the rink and in the evenings. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.  
  
Now that Yuuri wasn’t meeting Victor for lunch, he let himself stay on the ice for a bit even after Katya and Ilya had gone to class. Once he was happy with his session, he wandered toward the cafeteria, where he was waved over by Mila.  
   
“Yuri’s a complete monster today,” she said as Yuuri set down his food. “Help me either cheer him up or ignore him.”   
  
Yuuri looked over at Yuri, who was shoving potato salad around on his tray with a plastic spoon. His shoulders were hunched in, and he didn’t look up when Yuuri sat down. “What’s happened?”  
  
“Just practice this morning.”  
  
“Ah,” Yuuri said. “Didn’t go well? Did you work with Victor today?”  
  
“We definitely didn’t work with each other,” Yuri said. “I seriously don’t know how you put up with him.”   
  
Yuuri raised an eyebrow. Mila rolled her eyes. “I’m pretty sure Victor is nicer at home than he is on the ice.”  
  
“Isn’t he being nice on the ice?” Yuuri asked.   
  
Neither of the others spoke for a moment. Yuuri had expected a sharp negative from Yuri and some mocking, not this long pause and aversion of eyes. Mila, too, seemed suddenly too interested in her chicken.   
  
“So what happened?” He knocked gently on the table in front of Yuri’s tray. “Is it about your combination again?”  
  
“It’s not just my combination,” Yuri said, words coming out low but angry. “It’s everyone’s stuff. He’s got Natalya so worried about her double Axel that she fell ten times in practice, and Dima’s pulling extra hours in the dance studio over some invisible stagger in his step sequence.”  
  
Yuuri looked at Mila, who sighed before she replied. “It’s been different working with him,” she said, too diplomatically.  
  
“Different.” Yuri snorted. “You say that because he’s going easy on you.”  
  
“That’s not true at all.” She pulled up her tank top and revealed a purpling bruise over her lower ribcage. “Natalya’s not the only one who got a good talking to about her Axel.”  
  
“He seems… not that different, in the afternoon sessions,” Yuuri said, thinking back. Victor in the afternoons was the coach that Yuuri remembered best from Hasetsu the year before: intensely focused, straightforward, and usually perfectly right about everything. He admired and expected hard work, lavished praise on people once they’d met his expectations, and was constantly pushing forward.   
  
“It’s worse one-on-one,” Mila said.   
  
“Probably not for you.” Yuri gestured at Yuuri with his fork. “But we can’t all — ”  
  
“Ah ah.” Mila’s hand had slid over Yuri’s mouth, and he growled. “Let’s not throw around insults that we’ll all feel bad about later.” She jerked her hand away, frowning at what had to be saliva.  
  
“I wouldn’t feel bad,” Yuri assured her.   
  
“You would when Victor cut your throat with his skate blade for being an ass to his husband,” Mila said, and Yuri rolled his eyes.  
  
“He loves those skates too much to get blood on them,” he said, waving away the idea as though it was a bothersome fly.  
  
Yuuri scooped up a new bite of soup, letting Mila and Yuri bicker for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. _Was_ Victor being meaner on the ice of late? The same things that Yuuri admired in Victor as a coach, his bluntness chief among them, could be construed as difficult, even mean in other cases. Yuuri had been a fan of Victor’s for long enough before they’d really met to understand that Victor wasn’t making fun of him when he’d been hard on him in Hasetsu. He’d also, perhaps, been so hard on himself for so long that having Victor say out loud what Yuuri already thought — that he needed to get into better physical shape, that he wasn’t mentally ready to tackle the big new jumps at first — hadn’t been jarring so much as it had again confirmed his confidence in Victor’s superior senses. When, later, Victor had praised him, Yuuri had believed it in part because he’d believed Victor’s criticism so completely.  
  
The skaters here, though, didn’t come to this coaching transaction with the same long-term, long-distance admiration that Yuuri had. They’d seen Victor as an imperfect colleague for years. To have him now criticizing them from the high platform where Yakov had stood could cause some resentments — or hurt feelings.  
  
So that afternoon, Yuuri paid better attention. He saw the way, at junior practice, that Katya and Ilya rolled their eyes at each other for a half-second after Victor gave them advice on their final lift. He noticed Nathalie wince when Victor asked her to do her double Axel again. He watched Dima skate a determined series of warm-ups in the far corner, as though he might blend in to his surroundings and miss his turn for Victor’s critical eye completely.   
  
And then, in senior practice, he watched Yuri snap at Victor like a small turtle, angry and probably frightened, after he’d spilled out onto the ice for the third time that afternoon. Victor answered each snap in languid Russian, the picture of bored elegance as he glided around Yuri and into a triple flip. It was hard to tell whether it had been meant as inspiration or mocking or, maybe, both.  
  
It wasn’t just that the others were taking what Victor was saying the wrong way; Victor was different with the others on the ice.  
  
He meant to bring it up that night at dinner, though he wasn’t sure how. As they walked into the apartment together, Victor said, “OK. I’m ready. I’ll call Paolo’s.”  
  
“Paolo’s,” Yuuri echoed, then laughed. “I forgot.”  
  
“ _You_ forgot?” Victor said, grinning. “I should write this down!”  
  
It was the second of the month, the day that Yuuri had reserved for talking about finances over dinner. They always got Italian food and then spent the entire time from when they ordered until when it arrived talking through their various accounts and figures.  
  
Yuuri needed these discussions in a way that Victor, clearly, did not. Melding their two financial styles had so far been easy only because Victor truly did not seem to care much about maintaining his accounts, and as such, he was happy to hand Yuuri the keys and codes and passwords. Yuuri, on the other hand, sometimes woke in a cold sweat, picturing the judgmental stare of Victor’s financial advisor in their only encounter. He didn’t want her to think he had pursued Victor for his money or his fame, and so he worked to make sure that the blending of their accounts did not look like a takeover.   
  
The truth, though, was that Victor was right: it didn’t really matter. He had been making more than enough money annually for the past decade, and his icy financial advisor had turned his comfortable intake into modest wealth. It helped that Victor didn’t exactly have expensive taste: he had eclectic taste, happy to splurge on designer clothing or delightful experiences but equally enthralled by dime-store paintings, city bus rides, and illegally copied Blu-ray discs.   
  
So once a month, Yuuri made Victor sit through this dinner where they went through their finances to make sure everything appeared correct. That evening, their discussion overlapped the arrival of the food, because it included looking through all of the extra charges from Marseille that they’d incurred while paying for the rest of the Russian team to eat and move around town. “I’m afraid that will only get worse," Victor said. “They’ll need support through the end of the season, at least. Most of the rink expenses are covered through their arrangements with Yakov, and I know he will eventually reimburse me, but incidentals…”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He’d expected that answer. “It should be fine.”  
  
“Of course it will be,” Victor said. “It’s an investment, anyway.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. “In the others?”  
  
“In my coaching career.” Victor smiled, though it didn’t seem as bright as usual. “Money well spent to create happy clients!”   
  
“It is more reasonable than how you keep me happy, at least,” Yuuri said, and Victor laughed. “What are you even charging me for coaching these days, anyway?”  
  
“It’s a true bargain rate,” Victor promised. “Don’t tell the others. I can’t make any other similar deals.”  
  
“Your secret is safe with me.” Yuuri stood and folded up the computer, then slid it aside. “And so are your accounts. All done.”   
  
“Thank goodness. I hate mixing business and pleasure.”  
  
Yuuri snorted. He collected his plate and Victor’s and carried them to the dishwasher. “Are you still paying Yakov?” he asked, meaning it as curiosity. Victor flinched, and Yuuri realized how it might have sounded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean —“  
  
“It’s fine,” Victor said, but he didn’t smile. “I am. I — our arrangement is different anyway, a bit.” He shook his head as though tossing off a cobweb, then took the last sip of his wine. “You know, I was eight when I came to St. Petersburg for skating.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He knew: Victor had mentioned this in many interviews. He picked up Victor’s wine glass and set it beside the sink. They had leftover food, as they always did, and Yuuri made quick work of re-packaging it and putting it in the refrigerator. Then, he reached for Victor’s empty glass, ready to put it in the dishwasher. Victor said, “I wasn’t done with that, actually. Let’s have a drink on the balcony, what do you say?”  
  
“It sounds better than dishes.”  
  
Victor laughed. “Such high praise. Did you like the red, or should I open another bottle?”  
  
“It’s fine,” Yuuri said. He didn’t want to end up with a bottle all to himself. Sharply cool night air began to filter into the apartment as Victor opened the balcony doors. They had no view to speak of: the river in the distance, yes, but a half-dozen buildings broke up the sightline. In spring and summer, leafy trees would at least hide some of the brutal architecture around them, but now, they saw the city through a filter of empty brown-gray limbs and hulking concrete buildings. Most evenings, the street below provided the best entertainment, as couples strolled and families jostled down the uneven sidewalks. A slightly out-of-tune piano tinkled in the near distance, plinking through basic scales. Victor took his wine outside, while Yuuri went back in for a sweater and a blanket.  
  
When he returned, Yuuri sat on one of the old, wide metal lounge chairs gracing Victor’s concrete balcony. In the magazines, his apartment had always looked so sleek and clean and glamorous. After arriving, he’d quickly found that these photos had been expertly styled to avoid the crumbling plaster in the corners, the Soviet-era cement-block window casings, and the effective but inefficient radiators at the edge of every surprisingly small room. Still, it was a great apartment, better than anything Yuuri had ever lived in, and not only because Victor was there.  
  
Victor lay back in the other chair, propped up just enough that he could drink his wine without drowning. “You’ll be glad for winter to end, eh?”  
  
From under his blanket, Yuuri nodded. “Was it this cold in Moscow, before you came here?”  
  
“No," Victor said. “Or maybe it was. I don’t really remember it.” He sipped his wine. The piano player had begun to pick through a simple song that Yuuri didn’t recognize. Maybe it was a Russian children’s song. He knew, maybe, two Russian songs recognizably well, and one of them was the anthem he’d heard played after each of Victor’s Olympic appearances.   
  
“I came in, ah, 1995? 1996. Yes.”  
  
“To meet with Yakov.”  
  
“Mm.” Victor’s eyes closed. “He was famous even then, you know? He’d taken Dmitri Kuzmich to Lillehammer, coached Tatyana Anosova and Andrei Golovkin in Worlds.”  
  
“I saw Kuzmich once,” Yuuri said. “Touring in the United States.”  
  
Victor nodded. “He moved there right after the Olympics. Took his wife and child and just — left.” He opened his eyes, now, and sat up a bit more to take a new drink. “Things weren’t good here. They weren’t good anywhere, really, though — I was eight, I had no idea. But we came to town just to see the famous Mr. Feltsman. I thought we’d go, maybe, to the big rink where Kuzmich and Anosova and Golovkin skated. The one on the television. During the Olympics, they’d run pictures in the newspapers, told all these stories about it. Gleaming. Enormous. Three indoor practice rinks. A restaurant. Trampolines — I really remember reading about the trampolines, you know? I was eight. I thought, wow. This is a, no, the place for skating in all the world, and it is where I must be.”  
  
Yuuri almost interrupted to say, Not much has changed, but he saw that Victor had sunk into memory, that he needed to tell this story. So he stayed quiet, watching.   
  
“So we came — my mother knew a woman from her work. This lady, she had to go to St. Petersburg for business, so I could ride along. I wrote ahead, set everything up. Maybe I should have realized — but I was eight.”  
  
Yuuri’s glass was still full. He set it down and turned on his side, facing Victor, completely engrossed. The earpiece of his glasses dug uncomfortably against his head. “What should you have known?”  
  
Victor sighed and took a long drink from his own glass. “The skating federation collapsed with the rest of the Soviet Union. They had paid for everything: all of the coaches, all of the rinks, all of the skaters’ expenses. It was like a machine. You got in through the interview process, and then you were set. I’d grown up thinking if I could just get in — no, when I got in, that would be my life. Like a, ah. What’s — like the machine where things go in a row, and they move, ah, like a flat escalator?”  
  
“A conveyor belt?”  
  
“Yes! Like that. I would get on, and then the end would be assured.” He shook his head. “But the escalator, the conveyor belt, it was broken. There was no money there. Before, the coaches toured and recruited, but that year — no one had regional competitions. No one could afford it. Skating was over in Russia. Well, Dmitri did fine. Anosova and Golovkin did well. They did ice shows in other countries.” Yuuri nodded, not sure Victor could see him. He was staring up, now, into the blurry gray dark of the city sky. “Dmitri moved to America and had a three-story house and a car and two kids in good schools.  
  
“Here, though: No one had money. There was no state to pay for skating anymore.” He shifted, sipped his wine again. The glass was nearly empty. “My appointment with Yakov — it wasn’t at the grand palace. It was, they’d found this factory on the edge of town. They had installed a rink for the workers at some point, just, an amusement. They were charging 25 cents for bicycle parking, and Yakov had to pay a man to clean the ice. They wanted money to put on my music, and I didn’t have any money, so I went without.”  
  
Yuuri tried to picture this: tiny Victor in a dilapidated rink, disappointed and desperate. He came up with nothing. His earliest memories of Victor were all magazine photos and blurred television broadcasts, glamorous performances. He wondered if Victor had any photos from his childhood, and whether Yuuri would ever see them.   
  
Victor sat up, a bit, shaking his head. His empty wine glass sat next to Yuuri’s full one on the side table. “I was just — I was eight, and I had come all of that way, spent my money on the transit to get there, there was no music and there were at least three other kids on the rink. I probably fell three times, and then I looked over, and Yakov was just glaring. And I went numb. Just — blank. I did my entire planned routine again, perfectly.  
  
“He said to me, ‘I would have signed you after the first run, but now I guess I have to take you on.’” Victor laughed. “I should have known when he answered a letter from an eight-year-old how desperate things were, I guess. We never even talked about money. He had a car — Dmitri had bought him this ridiculous Range Rover, after the Olympics — and he told me to get in.” He laughed, again, the sound more genuine this time. “He was a terrible driver, but so was everyone else.”   
  
Yuuri shivered, leaning closer. The chair creaked faintly as he moved. “Did you — what happened then?”  
  
“We called my mother’s friend from his house, and told her I wasn’t going home,” Victor said, shrugging, like of course this was the next step. “He knew I had nothing to give him, no money. My mother couldn’t give him anything — no, couldn’t give me anything, not for skating, not with how things were. I was years away from making money in the sport, and I needed basically everything: equipment, training, schooling, costumes.”  
  
Yuuri didn’t have to imagine all of this, as he had been there, too. He knew exactly how expensive it was to become a figure skater. At eight, he’d been skating at Ice Castle using rented skates, paying for weekly lessons and spending his pocket money to get in during the public skate times. By twelve, he’d been trading chores like blade sharpening and assisting with classes to Yuuko’s family to get solo time on the ice. The last two years were the only ones in which he’d made significantly more than he’d spent on skating.  
  
Through it all, though, Yuuri’s family had been there. Mari had cheered him on and learned the sport, developing a pretty broad knowledge of skating and even following several skaters specifically. His parents had never managed to figure out the technical elements, but they’d always said yes when he’d asked for more help. Yes every year, when he needed new boots or blades and costumes; yes to the summer intensive training camps and to all the travel expenses involved; yes, even, to his move to Detroit, which had cost money while also depriving the onsen of one wage-free worker. They had provided for him at every stage.   
  
Victor had had none of that.   
  
“How did you do it?”  
  
A car’s engine sputtered along below, the heavy exhaust wafting up on the breeze. Victor sighed. “He had such faith.”  
  
“In you.”  
  
“Well. Yes, but also in the system. He knew it would come back. Knew the country would decide skating was important again, that it would want champions again.” He shrugged. “So I lived in his house. Rode into the rink with him every day, first to the factory, then to Yubileyney when it was available again. Anosova and Golovkin complained in the press, and we’d get good ice for a week or so, and then it was back to shit.”  
  
“I’ve never read about any of this,” Yuuri admitted.  
  
Victor nodded. “I didn’t get into even the local news until, ah. Maybe 2001? We had the SCC by then. Yakov had started taking in students from other places. He was a bargain, you know? In America, coaches got a hundred U.S. dollars an hour; Yakov would make maybe 300 a month here, and that was if the international skaters paid up. My mother, when I left, couldn’t have afforded 25 dollars if I’d asked for it.” Victor shrugged. “But he stayed. So I stayed. And — he was right. Mostly. Things did get better. The ones today — Yura, Dima, Natalya, even Mila — they don’t really know. Everything for them, it’s, ah. The conveyor belt, I guess.”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, sliding his hand over Victor’s, “I think your first translation was better. The escalator. They go up.”  
  
“Yes, I guess we all do.”  
  
It hurt to think of Victor alone, scared, eight in this big cold city, Yakov his only friend. It hurt now because Yakov was so far away. At least Victor didn’t have to be alone, Yuuri thought. He gathered the blanket around himself, stood, and then crawled into Victor’s lap. He lay his head on Victor’s chest and wrapped his arms around him, and Victor sighed and rested his cheek on the top of Yuuri’s head.  
  
“I’m glad you stayed,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Well,” he said, his voice lighter, “I did eventually run off to Japan.”  
  
“For half a season,” Yuuri said, smiling. “It barely counts.”  
  
“Barely counts, but it was also life changing. How is that possible?”  
  
He looked up, caught Victor’s mouth in a gentle kiss. “Life changing, eh?”  
  
“Why, Yuuri, are you disputing the effect of love on my life?” His hands slid up under the blanket, cold fingertips suddenly pressing against the bare skin of Yuuri’s back.  
  
“Ah!” Yuuri laughed against Victor’s neck. “Never, never,” he assured him, pressing his mouth to Victor’s cool skin. Victor laughed and moved to rub Yuuri’s back instead, in long, soothing strokes. “Is this why you’re hard on the others?” he asked, quietly, ready to let Victor ignore the question if he wanted to.  
  
“Perhaps it is part of it,” Victor said after a moment. “And it’s also — this is how it’s done, here. This is the Russian way.”  
Yuuri huffed. “What, being mean?”  
  
“You’re laughing, but it’s true,” Victor said. “They know this. It’s no surprise. Yakov is Russian skating. His method is tough, but it gets results.”  
  
It was clear that Victor meant himself, Yakov’s great result. Yuuri shifted, sliding slightly to the side so that he was still tucked up against Victor but less on top of him. The cold metal of the chair bit through his thin track pants, but he fought down a shiver. “Was he tough on you when you were small?”  
  
“Not exactly,” Victor said. Yuuri waited for him to say more. “Do you think I’m hard on them?” he asked, instead.  
  
Yuuri tilted his head down, looking at where one of his hands rested in the middle of Victor’s ribcage, fingers splayed over the bones. “I think your relationship with everyone has changed, now that you’re in a different role,” he said, trying to be careful and gentle and honest. “You know them better than I do. You know the rink’s rules.”  
  
“But,” Victor prompted.  
  
“The juniors are — not everyone is Yuri,” he said. “They’ve been through a lot. With Yakov, and all the change.”  
  
“You went through a lot, last year,” Victor said. “Would you have wanted me to go easy on you?”  
  
“Of course not.” Yuuri looked up, then, saw that Victor’s smile was just as careful and gentle. “But my trouble — it was of my own making, mostly.”  
  
“Mostly,” Victor echoed. “That sounds like progress. Not going to blame yourself for all of it?”  
  
“There was nothing I could’ve done about you being a jackass after the free skate in Sochi,” Yuuri said, surprising a laugh out of Victor. “And,” he said, pausing, “nothing I could have done differently about Vicchan.” He took a deeper breath. Victor’s hand slid over his, and he felt so surrounded and safe. “And my anxiety — it’s something I experience. It’s not, ah. Not my fault.”  
  
“Oh, Yurasha.” Yuuri felt Victor’s kiss against his hair, welcomed the warm tightening of his arm. “I’m so proud of you. So — so impressed.”  
  
“I love you, too," Yuuri said, and Victor squeezed him. “But — hey, let me breathe, thanks! — The juniors, it’s not their fault, any of this that’s happened, and they aren’t me. OK?”  
  
He pulled back enough to look Victor in the eye, saw the smallest frown at the corner of his mouth. “I know they aren’t you.”  
  
“What a relief,” Yuuri teased.  
  
“But they can all be — better,” he said. “I can see, Yuuri, I can see such potential in their programs, but —“ He closed his eyes, frustration obvious on his face. “Well. I’m not Yakov. I understand that.”  
  
“You’re a wonderful coach.” Yuuri squeezed his hand. “You’re wonderful.”  
  
“You’re wonderful,” Victor said. When his eyes opened, they were clear, and they were focused entirely on Yuuri. “Let’s be done with talking of this for tonight, OK?”  
  
“OK,” Yuuri agreed. “And also with this freezing balcony?”  
  
“I’ll make a tough Russian out of you yet,” Victor said, laughing, but at least he didn’t object to going inside, and he certainly didn’t object when Yuuri requested that they share body heat to warm up after their chilly experience.  
  
It was a pretty good way to end the night.


	8. Monday, 2 January 2017 (and a few extras)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Practice, party, after-party, and Yuuri's celebrity crush revealed.

Things with the other skaters didn’t get better immediately after their talk, but they didn’t get worse. The next day, Yuuri could tell that Victor was thinking about it, at least. He saw a moment’s hesitation before he critiqued moves for the juniors, now, and he noticed that everyone was getting a bit more praise during the afternoon session. That seemed like enough for now. With Euros so close, it wasn’t as though they had time for complete personality overhauls, anyway (nor would Yuuri want that).  
  
In fact, over the next few days, they barely had time for the necessary skating. Yuuri thought it was lucky that Victor had been pretty happy with Victor’s own GPF performance. He still skated his own programs every day, and still stayed late twice that week to do more specific practices, but unlike everyone else at the rink, Victor had no coach. He’d brushed off (gently, kindly) Yuuri’s offers to record him. Instead, he seemed to be putting himself through some kind of self-guided feedback sessions. When Yuuri made it in to the rink early enough, he watched — and thought whatever Victor was doing, it was clearly working for him.  
  
They didn’t have a chance to talk through it, though, at least not right after he skated. Usually, Victor spent his mid-mornings doing weekly one-on-one sessions with the other skaters or monitoring their workouts and cross-training or off-ice choreography practice. He spent lunch time on administrative duties like checking on registration paperwork, calling back sponsors, or talking to the skating Federation. He’d reluctantly taken the keys to Yakov’s office, but more often, Yuuri found him sitting in an abandoned training room at the end of the hall, surrounded by old costumes and disassembled boots.  
  
Friday afternoon found him there, again.  
  
Yuuri went looking for Victor at lunch time because he hadn’t even breezed briefly through the cafeteria for a snack. Their nutritionist/chef had made a lightened up version of Olivier that day to celebrate Nathalie’s birthday and Christmas Eve, and Yuuri was surprised that Victor hadn’t teleported in as soon as the salad was served. He had a childlike love of Olivier (which Yuuri actively disliked, though he’d tried it again that day to join in on Nathalie’s celebration). Yuuri was carrying a small paper container full of it, along with a plastic container of the day’s vegetable soup and one other with a small chicken sandwich.  
  
Victor looked up when he walked in and smiled, holding up a single finger. His phone was at his ear, and he was sitting on a bench that had been pushed against the far wall. Yakov’s folio was open to his right, covered in small sticky notes. “Da,” Victor said, and then continued in rapid Russian. Yuuri caught only a few words: flight, airport, and Ostrava among them. Sponsor, then, likely, or travel agent. Victor rubbed a hand over his own forehead, eyes closing in what looked like annoyance although his tone stayed light enough.  
  
“OK,” he said, finally, and Yuuri understood that he was signing off. “Thank you for your call. I will be in touch.” He turned the phone off and leaned his head back against the wall. “I didn’t know I could hate Aeroflot more, but here we are," he said. “What time is it?”  
  
“Almost time for junior practice,” Yuuri said. “But you haven’t eaten.”  
  
“And there was Olivier today,” he said, voice mournful.  
  
“Ah, lucky for you, there still is.” Yuuri walked over and nudged Victor’s hand with the take-out containers, and he looked down and then grinned.  
  
“I have made all the right decisions in life!” he said, opening the salad container and nearly squealing. “Yurasha! You are the best.”  
  
“I gave you my share,” he said, as Victor lifted a spoonful that contained baloney and peas. “Please eat it in good health.”  
  
Victor laughed. When he leaned back, the pile of old skating boots at the end of the bench quivered, and a single leather casing toppled to the floor.  
  
“This looks beyond salvageable,” Yuuri said, toeing the boot back into place.  
  
“Balkon, dacha, pomoika,” Victor murmured.  
  
“What’s that?” Yuuri felt his nose scrunch up, almost involuntarily, as he tried to think about his still-struggling Russian. “I caught, ah, balcony and dacha.”  
  
“Balcony, country house, garbage,” Victor said. “Yakov used to say it all the time. It was — like a game, I guess? Things that could still be used, these were the places they could be stored. It’s an old saying — about conserving.” He shrugged, looking down at his lunch. “I guess it seemed a waste to throw them out.”  
  
“I like the smell,” Yuuri admitted. “Old skates. It reminds me of Ice Castle.”  
  
“Yes,” Victor said. “I’m apparently drawn to small comforts at the moment.” He smiled down almost lovingly at his salad, then made a small whine. “Oh, but — do I have time? I should get my skates on.” He started to fold the container closed, and Yuuri stopped him with a gentle hand over his.  
  
“Let me get them started,” he said. “If you’re there by three to work with Nathalie and Dima, they won’t be too disappointed to see only me out on the ice.”  
  
“They will be delighted,” Victor said. “You’re sure? Not going to overtire yourself?”  
  
Yuuri gave him a quick up-and-down look. “I’m sorry, did you say something about overworking?”  
  
“Leave me," Victor said, “I must drown my sorrows in this delicious lunch because my charming husband has been replaced by a sassy monster.”  
  
Yuuri laughed and leaned in close enough to allow Victor to kiss his cheek. “See you in an hour.”  
  
The juniors did not seem disappointed to see Yuuri, as Victor had predicted. “Is this my birthday treat?” Nathalie asked when Yuuri explained he’d be helping them for the first hour.  
  
“If so, my birthday is tomorrow,” Dima said, so quietly that Yuuri wasn’t sure he had meant to speak out loud.  
  
“I thought we’d run it a bit like our regular sessions,” Yuuri said. “Only not edge practice. Just — we can work together and see what will be the best use of time. Sounds good? OK!”  
  
He wound up splitting his time pretty equally between all four juniors. Dima wanted a closer eye on his step sequence, mainly on the entrance he was using now for the triple axel at its end. Ilya, chastened by their low standing against the senior pairs, asked for help with their choreographic sequence, and Yuuri ran him through at half speed with the kind of on-beat clapping that Minako used to demand of him. Katya needed jump help and confidence. Nathalie, well — she needed jump help, too, but mostly, she needed focus, which was in short supply on her birthday.  
  
“You’ll come tonight, right?” she said, when they’d just finished her 20 minutes of time with him. Yuuri had been staring off to the side, where Ilya and Katya were practicing timings on their combination spins.  
  
Yuuri turned back and nodded, then realized he didn’t know the question. “What’s tonight, sorry?”  
  
“My party. Or, well, Mila says, it’s like the afterparty because I have family dinner before hand?” Her face was red from the exertion of practice but also, Yuuri suspected, from the excitement. “It’s at Mila’s flat. Eight in the evening. I wanted to send it to the group text, but, ah.” She looked around, then down. Across the rink, Yuuri heard Victor call out in greeting to someone. “Please don’t tell Victor if you think he’ll be mad about it. I won’t let it affect my practice.”  
  
“It’s OK,” Yuuri said. “He likes birthdays.” He tried to smile, even as he realized how silly that sounded. “And tomorrow is the holiday, anyway! Should I bring anything?”  
  
“No! Or, wait, I don’t know, actually?” She laughed, high and carefree, not a noise he usually heard from her on the ice. “I think Mila will know.”  
  
“I’ll talk with her.” He gave a short bow. “Thank you for the invitation.”  
  
“Thank you for your help,” she said.  
  
Yuuri spent the next hour working with Dima and Ilya on jumps at one end of the rink while Victor worked with Nathalie and Katya at the other end. He was sure Victor had stuck them together because Yuuri still had things to learn about crafting his own jumps. Both boys knew the technique for the jumps they wanted to do (quad toe for Dima, triple flip for Ilya), but they were struggling for other reasons. Ilya’s jump looked a bit lip instead of flip, a problem Yuuri remember Phichit had struggled with during their first year together. For Phichit, it had meant more edge drills, more doubles to practice the impact feeling, and homework of watching himself on tape. Ilya took these suggestions in stride, probably because they were obvious; Yuuri was grateful that he didn’t object.  
  
Dima’s problem was more complicated and familiar. He was messing up his jump in midair, anticipating failure before it was assured. Yuuri gestured him over to the side of the rink after the third underrotation in a row. Across the rink, Victor was completely engaged with the two junior girls, having them both demonstrate their spins.  
  
“Are you hurt?” Yuuri asked, keeping his voice low.  
  
“No! Oh, no, it’s — do I look that bad?” Dima twisted his hands together.  
  
“No, no,” Yuuri assured him, “your form is actually really good. You’ve got great speed and your take-off is wonderful, but — it looks like you’re wincing when you land. I thought maybe…” he looked down at Dima’s boots. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d known a skater to hide an injury.  
  
“No,” Dima said, and Yuuri realized he was blushing. “I’m fine. I — thank you for asking.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He looked out on the ice and thought about himself, at 15, trying to learn enough to warrant all the time and expense that skating required. Ten years ago, it hadn’t been expected that he’d debut in seniors with a quad in his arsenal. Dima, though, lived under the dual expectations of the new realities in men’s skating and the Russian federation’s demands for excellence.  
  
“Have you had a bad fall recently?” he asked, making his voice a bit more gentle.  
  
“Nothing that hurt," Dima said. “I promise.”  
  
Yuuri shook his head. “I believe you,” he said. “But I also know you can do this jump. You’re right there. I wish — I wish you could see it, too,” he said, risking a smile. Dima blinked, nearly a flinch. “You should try one more time.”  
  
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” he said, so quiet Yuuri almost didn’t hear it. “I’ll just fall.”  
  
Yuuri laughed. “If you fall, so what. It’s something you’ll have in common with everyone else here today. A fall changes nothing. That’s what practice is for. I’m planning to fall for the better part of the next two hours.” He rested one hand on Dima’s shoulder. “Besides, Dima, I know you can do it.”  
  
Dima blinked. Then he nodded, rapidly. “OK. OK.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Where should I start?”  
  
Now, Yuuri blinked. “Oh. Ah, I don’t know, what’s good? Don’t tire yourself out. Maybe, mark the combo and then do the choreography into the jump.”  
  
“Yes, coach!” Dima said, and Yuuri laughed and waved him off. Teenagers were funny.  
  
Yuuri skated around the side until he was at the entrance, deciding he’d watch better from a distance. Dima probably needed his space, and they didn’t have too much time left before senior practice. As he skated by, Yuuri caught Victor’s eye, then tilted his head toward Dima. It would be good for him to have his coach watch. Maybe Victor would catch what was ruining his landing.  
  
He didn’t have the chance. Dima landed a quad toe at center ice, flying out of it and quickly into a gorgeous sit spin. Yuuri clapped, grinning, and Victor shot him a quick look. Was he… impressed?  
  
“That was much improved, Dima," Victor called. “Cool down, everyone!”  
  
Yuuri gave Dima a thumbs up from across the rink, delighted to see him smiling.  
  
While the juniors cooled down, usually, the seniors warmed up, which meant Yuri and Mila pushed on to the ice just as Yuuri stepped off. He granted himself a between-rounds ten-minute break to get water before returning to the ice. Practice had already begun. Mila was leaning against the boards at the far end while Yuri and Victor yelled at one another closer up. Yuuri could tell from their tones that it wasn’t serious, so he waved to both and then skated on past to Mila.  
  
“What started them off?”  
  
She shrugged. “Yuri fell on a combo. Vitya’s trying to get him to downgrade to triple-triple, I think, so Yuri’s going to light him on fire or something.”  
  
“The usual, then?” She nodded, grinning. “Nathalie told me to ask if there’s anything we can bring to the party tonight.”  
  
Now she turned to face him. “Are you coming? Both you and him?” She gestured down the rink, her meaning clear.  
  
“I haven’t asked him about it, yet, but I was going to.”  
  
She nodded slowly. “Don’t take this the wrong way or tell Vitya I said it, but — do you think he can leave the coaching behind for one night? I don’t have plans that are too wild, but the kids will have no fun if he’s going to lecture.”  
  
Across the rink, Yuri yelled something that ended in “Motherfucker!” Victor’s patronizing, serene smile was so broad it was like an aura around him.  
  
“I don’t know,” Yuuri said, “but I will help.”  


* * *

  
After practice, Yuuri followed Victor to the car. “Can we stop at the store? I want to pick up something to take to Nathalie’s party.”  
  
Victor blinked, then shook his head. He climbed inside, but didn’t turn the car on yet. “Are you going to her party?”  
  
“Aren’t we?” Yuuri buckled his seatbelt. “Turn on the heat, please.”  
  
Victor nodded and turned on the car, and they waited silently for the engine to warm up. It wasn’t a long drive home,  but Victor had started bringing his car in because he sometimes took equipment home from the rink to deliver to various repair shops. “I don’t think I’m invited,” Victor said, after a long quiet moment.  
  
“Of course you are.” Yuuri had tucked his hands up under his armpits, hunching over to keep warm. “Nathalie and Mila both said you were.”  
  
“You should call her Natalya, you know.” Victor rubbed his shoulder for a moment, then said, “Ah, should be fine now,” and jabbed the button to start blasting the heat.  
  
Yuuri didn’t unfold yet. The leather seats of Victor’s car seemed to hoard the cold. Victor put the car in gear and drove out of the parking garage, giving a brief wave to the attendant. “Why wouldn’t you be invited? It’s a rink party.”  
  
“Yes,” Victor said, slowly, “and I’m the coach at the rink, now. It’s different, like we talked about. If Yakov were here, Natalya wouldn’t invite him, would she?”  
  
“But you’re not Yakov,” Yuuri said, then frowned when Victor let out a mirthless laugh. “That’s not what I meant.”  
  
They rolled past a few more blocks. Yuuri noticed that Victor didn’t turn on the broad avenue that would have led them to the mall, and he sighed. “Vitka,” he said, quietly, “you may be right. They probably do not want their coach there. But you are more than a coach. To me, and to everyone else. You’re a rinkmate, and our friend.”  
  
“Oh, just friends?”  
  
“I’m talking about everyone else, here,” Yuuri said, understanding the diversion tactic for what it was. Still, he could work with this. “Of course you are welcome to be more than friendly with me. Do you think there will be drinking at this party?”  
  
Victor finally smiled for real. “OK,” he said. “We’ll go. But I insist that we arrive late!”  
  
Yuuri groaned. This was part of Russian culture that he could not understand. Even the Americans were better about arriving on time than Russians were — Victor seemed to think it was insulting to arrive before 30 minutes into any scheduled party. “Fine. Can we stop for a gift?”  
  
“I have something at home.”  
  
That was true. Victor loved to shop, and he loved to travel. The two interests had combined to make sure he had a small storage tub in the back of his closet filled with assorted gift possibilities. Yuuri selected a silk scarf with a blaze of grass green and dark royal blue. Then, he returned to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of wine to take as a hostess gift for Mila. Yuuri knew almost nothing about Western wine, but he knew Mila liked rosé and he liked the grinning penguin on the bottle.  
  
“Nice choice,” Victor said. He’d showered and changed as soon as they arrived home. Now, instead of soft workout clothes, he wore dark jeans and a silvery shirt with an angled neckline that nearly showed one collarbone. Yuuri grinned at him, dizzy with disbelief about his own life for a moment.  
  
“I should shower, too," he said, standing from where he’d rummaged through the box.  
  
“Need company? Or help?”  
  
“That is tempting,” Yuuri admitted, “but I think Makka needs to go out.”  
  
He was surprised to be tugged into Victor’s arms as he walked by. “It’s amazing,” Victor said, his cheek pressed against Yuuri’s head.  
  
Up close, the silvery shirt was softer than it looked, and Yuuri rested his head briefly on Victor’s shoulder. “What is?”  
  
“This. Everything. You’re here, married to me.” He leaned back enough that Yuuri could see his broad, heart-shaped smile. “You care for my dog.”  
  
Yuuri laughed. “She’s the sweetest,” he said, and then put his hands on either side of Victor’s face, “and so are you.”  
  
Victor kissed him, then, and whispered, “Our dog, I mean.”  
  
“Good,” Yuuri murmured. “That sounds good.”  
  
He showered quickly and dressed in an outfit Victor had chosen for him: skinny red pants, a white shirt with a bit of ruffle at the wrists, and a black sweater with an intricate embellishment to pull over it. The outfit was his style, certainly, comfortable and functional, but with a bit of fashionable flare in the colored pants and the white shirt. It was also better than what he would have selected himself: higher quality material, a closer fit. Victor enjoyed shopping, after all.  
  
He emerged to find Victor and Makkachin just returning from their stroll. “Are you sure we have to go to this party?” Victor asked.  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“I can think of many celebratory things to do here.” He walked over and framed Yuuri’s waist in his hands.  
  
“Party,” Yuuri said, crossing his arms. “You married me, but you never take me out anymore.” Victor raised one eyebrow. Yuuri raised one right back, perfectly aware of the role reversal here. “I suppose I could go on my own…”  
  
“Not in that outfit," Victor said. He sighed dramatically. “Very well, then, if we must. It is — ah, tricky Yuuri! It’s not even 8 yet, and I was about to get my coat.”  
  
They spent the next fifteen minutes in a passive-aggressive game where Yuuri tried to goad Victor into getting in the car by pretending to have forgotten something and Victor threatened to go take a second shower and wash his hair this time just so they’d be extra late.  
  
They arrived at 8:25. Yuuri decided the five early minutes were a victory.  
  
Mila’s flat was on the third floor of a building that Yakov owned. Yuuri had never asked how he’d come to be the landlord here, but he thought Yakov had actually lived in the building for quite a while before he’d started to arrange for skaters to have housing there. It was a small, squat building — it had a fourth floor but no higher — and had originally been built to house communal apartments, apparently. Victor had tried to explain this to him one night while slightly drunk, when he’d decided Yuuri needed a Soviet Russia history lesson. Very little of that had stuck, but Yuuri drew up some of it as they trudged up the cement staircase.  
  
Mila’s was one of two apartments on the floor. The other was rented to Georgi and a hockey player who actually lived across town with his lover. As apartments went in St. Petersburg, they were pretty good: good location for getting to the rink, in a pretty quiet neighborhood. Yakov no longer lived in the building, but he was only two blocks away if anyone needed anything (or if anyone needed chaperoning). Victor’s building was newer and more expensive, remodeled to appear more modern, but the apartments here had strange, labyrinthine layouts that Yuuri found charming.  
  
They knocked on Mila’s door, and Yuuri was surprised to hear no music or chatter from inside.  
  
“Ah, come on in, we’re still setting a few things up,” Mila said, opening the door.  
  
“See,” Victor started, and Yuuri quickly handed their hostess gift to Mila before he could say any more.  
  
“For you!” he said, handing over the funny penguin wine.  
  
“Cute! Thank you.” Yuuri and Victor both paused a moment to change into the house shoes they’d toted along before walking further into the quiet, empty apartment.  
  
Yuuri definitely did not meet Victor’s eyes when Mila said, “You’re the first ones to arrive, so you can help with set up, yes?”  
  
“Yes," Yuuri said, firmly, glad to have a task.  
  
They’d been to Mila’s apartment before, but it had been a while, and they’d never really stayed for more than a few minutes. On his first visit, Yuuri had expected the gray desolation of the Soviet Russia Victor had described, and had been surprised to find it had a certain gilded European 1970s style. The floors looked like beige-and-white marble, matched to cream walls under exposed, dark wooden ceiling beams. The apartment was essentially T-shaped, with the top longer than the stem, and the door perched at the center of the top bar. A small living room sat immediately to their right, with a beige velvet couch and a television perched on top of an old dresser. To their left, past the narrow entryway, a short hall led to the bedrooms and bath; both bedrooms had balconies and had been constructed, Victor told him, by tearing down the old walls separating family units in the former communal apartments. Yuuri was used to close quarters, but he struggled to understand how anyone had fit their entire family into what was now a single, albeit spacious, bedroom.  
  
They walked through the small living room and through a swinging door into the kitchen. It held a table that could seat four near the door, where a few trays of food had already been set out. A familiar, orange-haired woman sliced fruit at the kitchen counter. She paused and turned around, then greeted them both in Russian.  
  
“Ah, Yuuri, this is Yelena Androva, Mila’s roommate.”  
  
“Lena, please,” she said.  
  
“Lena used to train in speed skating.”  
  
“Da, and now I study to be nurse. Take care of these when they fall.” She poked Mila in the side with an elbow and nodded her head at Victor. “You are Vitya’s man friend?”  
  
Yuuri glanced up at Victor. They hadn’t officially announced their marriage yet. Though both federations knew, they’d submitted their registrations for Nationals far enough in advance that their marital status had still been “single” in the published entries. That would change by Euros, but they’d still decided to keep the official news as low-key as possible. This was mostly because Victor’s publicist had arranged for a few pre- and post-wedding interviews and sponsor deals that might be slightly less valuable if they started celebrating their elopement. They still planned to have a wedding celebration in Hasetsu that summer.  
  
So Yuuri wasn’t sure how to answer this question. Luckily, Victor did.  
  
“Actually, Yuuri is my husband, now,” Victor said, and Yuuri felt him squeeze his hand.  
  
“Ah, is good! Someone must settle for him.”  
  
Mila laughed as Victor squawked. “She means settle you down, I think, or settle down with you.”  
  
“Ah,” Victor said, as Lena nodded. “Well, then, good.” He let go of Yuuri’s hand, only to loop his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, drawing him in so close that Yuuri’s cheek smushed into Victor’s collarbone. “I am happily settled down.”  
  
“Is too bad, though. Milochka bought so much vodka.”  
  
Victor grinned. “Yuuri likes to drink!”  
  
Yuuri elbowed him in the ribs as Lena said, “Wonderful!”  
  
Mila lifted a tray of sliced vegetables and started to back through the door. Yuuri asked, “Is Nathalie here yet?”  
  
“She’s just finished dinner with her family,” Mila said. “She’ll be by in a little bit.” You’re early was again implied, but Yuuri appreciated, at least, that she didn’t rub it in out loud. “You can help me set out some food. Grab the sausages.”  
  
Yuuri took his assigned tray and followed Mila back into the small living room, but she did not stop there. Instead, she opened two French doors directly opposite the front door, revealing a second, larger living room that shared a balcony with one of the bedrooms. This was the short stem of the T-shape.  
  
“Oh, I’ve never been in here," Yuuri said, surprised at the size of the room. It looked like a fancy living room or a parlor, maybe, some throwback space to a time when receiving guests had been a formal and frequent affair. The marble floor continued, but the walls inside were paneled in yellowy wood. Mila and Lena had decorated, of course: a squashy orange couch lay along one wall, and a bar cart sat in another corner, next to a bookshelf and a sizable stereo. Plush rugs in red and gold dotted the floor.  
  
“This used to be someone’s entire apartment," Mila said, shaking her head. “We still use it as a guest room. The couch folds out. Good party space, right?”  
  
“It’s great,” Yuuri said. This was probably the same size as Victor’s living room and kitchen combined, though his open plan home made it hard to tell. He set his food on the coffee table, as she suggested, then pointed toward the balcony.  
  
“Of course, go ahead,” she said. “Ignore the laundry across the way.”  
  
Yuuri inched out on to the balcony, grateful that it wasn’t too cold that evening. From three stories up, there wasn’t much view. He could see over the next building to a small park and, beyond that, to the row of houses where Yakov usually lived. It made him wonder whether Yakov had ever stood on his porch and looked up here, tracking the lights as they blinked on and off behind his skaters’ curtains. He’d never been much of a stickler for curfews at home, according to Victor, but Yuuri had seen him run his skaters through extra, punishing drills if he felt they’d been over-doing it the night before.  
  
“There are little tiny blini,” Victor said as he joined Yuuri on the balcony. His arms slid around Yuuri’s waist from behind. “We’ll call it a cheat day?”  
  
“Are you still going to remember saying that that tomorrow, or am I going to be doing extra running?”  
  
“Possibly both," Victor said, cheerfully, “so it’s good that you’re prepared.”  
  
Nathalie arrived about 5 minutes later, and Yuuri and Victor emerged from the party room to greet her. She laughed, seeming delighted, as they said hello. “I didn’t think you’d really come!” she said, smiling at Yuuri. “And, ah, Victor Petrovich, I know I shouldn’t stay up —“  
  
“No, no,” Victor said, “please. I’m not here as your coach. None of this formality. I want to celebrate my friend and rink-mate’s birthday with everyone.” Nathalie smiled, smaller but more completely, and nodded. “And we also brought a gift because Yuuri is the best!”  
  
She blushed and accepted the present when Yuuri found it at the door. “Oh, it’s lovely,” she said, drawing out the scarf between her slim fingers. In the low light of Mila’s apartment, the thin gold threads shimmered.  
  
Mila nodded, touching it with one delicate fingertip. “Italian?” she asked.  
  
“Spanish,” Victor said. “Something we picked out together, knowing we’d find a person to match something this beautiful.”  
  
Yuuri leaned on Victor and smiled when Nathalie looked over. “Happy birthday, Nathalie.”  
  
“Natalya,” she and Mila said in unison, and Yuuri laughed.  
  
“Yes. Happy birthday, Natalya!”  
  
As the others arrived, Victor made a great show of being, well, Victor, not their trying and serious coach, and the younger skaters were swiftly and expertly put at ease. By the time Yuri arrived, an hour late, they had all moved into the party room, where music played and the food attracted hovering groups. Yuuri was surprised by how cheerful the others were; he’d felt like they were all suffering through a stressful and trying time together since the Final. Instead, he remembered, most of them left their stresses at the rink and went home to other lives: friends, family, the small dramas of being teenagers. Yuuri and Victor lived and breathed skating these days, so it was hard to remember that they were exceptions even among this exceptional group.  
  
Yuri reminded him of this, elbowing him as he eyed the final bacon-wrapped sausage on the platter. “Don’t eat that,” he said.  
  
“Probably shouldn’t,” Yuuri agreed. He’d noticed Victor had stayed virtuously clear of the heavy meat trays all night.  
  
“We should play Forza,” Yuri said, as they both stared at the sausage.  
  
“Eh? Now?”  
  
“Not now, idiot,” Yuri said. “This week, though. Your skills are probably weaker than ever.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. “I haven’t played in a while. I’d like that.”  
  
“Tuesday and Thursday night,” Yuri said. “I’ll text you, I guess.”  
  
“Or just come over,” Yuuri said. Mila appeared behind Yuri, leaning over him to snag the last sausage. “Victor might stay late some nights, but I don’t have to.”  
  
Mila looked him up and down as she ate the sausage. Yuuri glanced down at himself, self-conscious. “Ah, is something wrong?”  
  
“Just noticed you’re not attached at the hip anymore,” she said, and Yuri snorted.  
  
“Yeah, was that surgery painful?”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “We do things apart.” They both stared at him, and he tried to think of something that wasn’t as lame as pointing out that they had different practice times. “Sometimes.”  
  
“If you’re making a playdate with Yura, you owe me one, too,” Mila said. “Want to go make fun of Japanese food soon?”  
  
“Is there a new place?” She nodded. “OK. Ah — we can take the bus?”  
  
“I’m hurt,” she said, “that you still don’t like my driving!”  
  
“He’d be more hurt if he let you drive,” Yuri said, and Mila shoved him.  
  
“No, no,” Yuuri said, mostly lying, “it’s all of the other drivers. It still makes me nervous.”  
  
She eyed him skeptically, but Yuuri kept his face still. This was at least partly the truth, after all: traffic around St. Petersburg was terrible. Everyone was angry. Probably only half of them were mad at Mila specifically. “OK. After practice, maybe Friday?”  
  
“And Tuesday and Thursday,” Yuri said. “Are you still buying your shchi from that stupid place on the corner?” Yuuri nodded. “Tch. Don’t. I know a better place.”  
  
“OK. I can meet you there?”  
  
“Yeah, whatever. I’ll text you.”  
  
It buoyed Yuuri’s spirits immensely. He wouldn’t say he’d been lonely, exactly, in St. Petersburg — he’d been too busy to be lonely, and having Victor was 100 percent more friendship than he was used to — but he had missed these kinds of casual interactions.  
  
They chatted for a few more minutes. Mila and Yuri both had plans with family the next day for Christmas and seemed surprised that Victor and Yuuri did not. “We don’t celebrate it,” Yuuri said with a shrug. “I mean, not in Japan.”  
  
Mila frowned. “I guess Victor usually was at Yakov’s for the holiday,” she said, speaking slowly.  
  
“Ach, remember the gifts he brought to the rink last year?” Yuri said, shuddering.  
  
“Two years ago,” Mila said, already grinning. “Oh, they were wonderful. The most absolutely alarming shads of puke-green and orange —“  
  
“Giant hockey gloves," Yuri said, and Yuuri blinked. This didn’t sound like Victor’s kind of shopping. “He found out you could use them to wrap your skates, or something —“  
  
“And got them on discount from his brother-in-law, and —“  
  
“They aren’t fire proof,” Yuri said, with a dismissive shake of his head. “Or oven proof.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Yuuri asked. “Victor bought everyone ugly gloves?”  
  
“Hm? Oh, no, Victor’s gifts are always really nice," Mila said, and even Yuri nodded. “No, these were from Yakov. Just horrible. Ask if Georgi still has them sometime; the rest of us would have thrown them out.”  
  
Yuuri laughed, picturing Yakov carrying in a crate of ugly gloves and presenting them to his snotty skaters as presents. “I’ll have to remember to send him something appropriate,” Yuuri said, and he watched a mischievous glint light in Yuri’s eyes.  
  
Still smiling, he found a different snack and sat on a loveseat next to Victor, who curled a hand around his knee while still chatting with Georgi. Yuuri decided not to interrupt, concentrating on the little cracker that he’d taken from the tray.  
  
“He wants to organize an ice show,” Victor said, after Georgi had left to get a new drink.  
  
“Eh?” Yuuri said. “Where?”  
  
“Here, but maybe with a tour. You’ll like this — the theme is love.” Victor wagged his eyebrows. “I said we’d be interested, depending on how the season goes.”  
  
“Mm. Maybe? I need to make sure my visa is OK.”  
  
Victor nodded, resting his head against Yuuri’s. “I’m glad we came,” he said, quietly.  
  
“Me, too.” Their fingers tangled on Yuuri’s leg.  
  
“It’s a nice crowd.”  
  
It really was. All of their rink mates were present, along with a few less familiar faces. Yuuri had briefly met Ilya’s girlfriend and Nathalie’s cousin, but a small cluster of four or five unfamiliar faces lingered near the entrance to the wider party room. Nathalie had squealed when they’d arrived, apparently truly surprised. There were her former rink mates from a smaller local club, Yuuri had gathered, which explained why they were hovering so far away. He wondered if Victor made them nervous and felt certain that Yuri did.  
  
“Have you met the other skaters yet?” Victor asked, as though reading his mind. “You should! They might be fans.”  
  
He wondered how much Victor had had to drink so far, decided it couldn’t really be so much since he hadn’t been up off the couch in at least a half hour. “More wine?”  
  
“Maybe for you,” Victor said. “Bring me whatever Zhora was drinking.”  
  
Yuuri wrinkled his nose. “Really? It smelled like paint thinner.”  
  
Victor’s smile turned indulgent. “Yes, dear, like a real drink.”  
  
By the time Yuuri made his way back from the kitchen with fresh drinks, Victor was chatting animatedly with one of Nathalie’s former rink mates who had arrived very late. He’d moved to sit on the arm of the sofa, leaning back with his arms crossed casually over his chest, while the newcomer stood before him, leaning a little close. Probably, Yuuri thought, that was to be heard over the music. Her black hair hung nearly to her waist, clipped away from her eyes by scarlet butterfly barrettes that matched her lipstick and her ballet-flat shoes. From her stance, he knew she was either a skater or a dancer, most likely both; she had the lean, stretched look of someone accustomed to dieting and to standing when every muscle ached. She had dark eyes rimmed in eyeliner, and one of her red-tipped nails rested casually on Victor’s shoulder. Yuuri felt he should recognize her, but he hadn’t been able to place her.  
  
“Have you met Veronique?” Mila asked, appearing at his elbow. She had a new drink, too, one Yuuri had watched her pour. It smelled like cherry paint thinner, and he stared at it for a moment while the words sunk in.  
  
“Oh,” he said. “That’s — oh.”  
  
She nodded. “She choreographs in Moscow, but she’s in town for something, I guess. Natalya worked with her on an exhibition last year.”  
  
Yuuri nodded, head feeling strangely light. Veronique Fontaine had been an ice dancer, competing for France in the Vancouver Olympics while training in Russia until her retirement several years back. Along the way, she’d also modeled, done some acting, and become a sought-after choreographer for ice shows and music videos. That wasn’t why she was familiar to Yuuri, though. He knew her from fan magazines he’d purchased as a teenager, when Veronique had been Victor Nikiforov’s beautiful girlfriend for at least two years.  
  
Mila elbowed him in the ribs hard enough that Victor’s drink sloshed over Yuuri’s wrist. “Hey!”  
  
“Get over there,” she said, and he stepped forward before she could give him another shove.  
  
They were conversing in rapid, cheerful French as Yuuri approached. Victor broke off immediately into English: “Ah, here he is now! Yuuri, come meet an old friend. This is Veronique Fontaine.”  
  
Veronique smiled at him. “It is nice to meet you!” she said. “I have been asking Vitya, when do we meet, when do we meet, for what feels like years now.”  
  
“Ah,” Yuuri said, then gave a quick bow, since both of his hands were occupied. “It is good to meet you, as well.”  
  
Victor took his drink, then shifted it to the hand nearest Veronique. He used the other to pull Yuuri in closer, so that he was tucked into Victor’s personal space. “Vitya was telling me about your Japanese wedding plans," she said, grinning. Yuuri wondered if this meant that Victor hadn’t told her they were already married.  
  
“Nica is thinking of spending a few months back in Piter,” he said, as his hand slipped under Yuuri’s sweater to curl around his waist.  
  
“By necessity.” Veronique waved one hand as though warding off a smell. “I’d still rather be in Paris, but of course it can’t be helped. I go where the work is.”  
  
Victor lifted one teasing eyebrow. “And the attractive men, if memory serves.”  
  
“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “At least it’s better than Moscow. Moscow men are so dull. I do like the summers here, and it’s an easy flight back to see my family.” Her eyes narrowed. “Though I am still in mourning that skating’s most attractive man is off the market.”  
  
Victor’s eyes went comically wide. “Did you have a crush on Yuuri, too?” he said, laughing when Veronique swatted his arm playfully.  
  
“No, it’s wonderful,” she said. Behind Victor’s back, Yuuri saw Yuri approaching from across the room, carrying something on a napkin and apparently headed toward them. He felt relieved. Veronique was as beautiful as she was intimidating, and her easy flirtation with Victor made Yuuri feel like tucking his head into his chest and becoming a turtle. “And if he still does that thing with his tongue, darling, you’re a lucky man, and you’re welcome,” Veronique said, voice never lowering. Yuri made a precise 180 degree spin while cursing. Victor laughed, unembarrassed, while Yuuri felt his own face bloom with heat. “Ah, he is lovely, Vitya. Bring him to dinner sometime soon.”  
  
She fluttered off with cheek kisses, leaving behind a waft of perfume and sweet wine. “Ah,” Yuuri said, then couldn’t think of the next thing he wanted to say.  
  
“I had forgotten she still had an apartment here.” Victor sounded thoughtful.  
  
“I ate your pirozkhi,” Yuri said, appearing as if from nowhere. “You both deserve it.”  
  
“That’s not going to make your quads any easier to land, is it?” Victor said, and as they dissolved into bickering, Yuuri let his own mind wander. He’d never really gotten the full run down of Victor’s exes, after all. In truth, he hadn’t wanted one: he knew enough from fan magazines and Instagram to have pieced together some of Victor’s past. Beyond that, Victor’s charm and charisma told him that he’d likely spent very little time alone when he didn’t want to be.  
  
The party eventually wore down to just a few core friends and rinkmates. They fit comfortably in the party room, drinking and talking slowly, the balcony doors cracked just enough to let Yuri lean into the fresh air he said he needed. Yuuri and Victor shared the small loveseat. Yuuri had started off in his own space but had quickly been pulled against Victor, with Victor’s arm now wrapped around his back and Yuuri’s head reclined against Victor’s shoulder.  
  
Mila finished a glass of wine and said, “So, Vitya, when is he coming back?”  
  
Victor shifted behind Yuuri. “Yakov? Next season, he says.”  
  
“He says?” Yuri stood up straighter. “You’ve talked to him?”  
  
“Da.” Victor’s hand curled more firmly around Yuuri’s side. “He calls every morning. Wants to be sure I’m checking the ice right, wants to know I’ve locked the doors.” Yuuri felt him sigh. “I think he’d call in the evening, too, only Irina is home by then and he’s not supposed to stress himself.”  
  
Georgi shook his head. “What are the chances of that?”  
  
“Next to nothing,” Mila said. “Is there anything we can do for him?”  
  
“Just keep winning!” When Yuuri glanced up, Victor’s smile was suddenly a little false.  
  
Yuuri sat up, slightly. “He would like phone calls,” he said.  
  
“Yuuri,” Victor murmured, but Yuuri shook his head.  
  
“It’s true. He’s not good at texting. He would like a call.” The others looked surprised. Yuuri knew they hardly ever used their phones for verbal communication; he had been the same way until he’d moved abroad, at which point being able to hear his family’s voices — not to mention their familiar Japanese — had become something he’d craved. Now he had no problem initiating phone conversations, though most people his age dreaded it.  
  
Yakov, though, clearly wanted to talk. He called Victor every day, often at a time so early that the ringing of Victor’s phone alarmed Yuuri into brief wakefulness. He did ask about rink business, but more than that, Yuuri could tell he wanted to talk. On the rare evenings when he called, he tended to ramble a bit, rehashing old stories, and Victor sat patiently, making affirmative noises as he worked through his notes from the day.  
  
Yakov was lonely, Yuuri thought, and his skaters could likely help alleviate some of that with a call here or there.  
  
“Just… call him up?” Mila said.  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “We could do a schedule.” They all groaned. “What? Schedules are nice.”  
  
“I’ll call tomorrow,” Yuri said. “Morning is best?”  
  
“The earlier the better,” Victor said. “Do you want me to let him know to expect you?”  
  
“Whatever, I don’t care,” Yuri said, and Victor nodded.  
  
The topic turned again to lighter things, gossip and old stories, mostly. As they left, Victor said, “You didn’t have to goad them into calling Yakov. I don’t mind talking to him.”  
  
“I know,” Yuuri said, “but I think he would like to hear from them.” And there are only so many hours in the day, he wanted to add, but he didn’t. Instead, he rested his hand on Victor’s thigh in the back of the cab, having agreed to leave the car behind after Victor’s second or third drink.  
  
“Good party,” Victor said, again. “Nice mix of the usual friends and new faces.”  
  
“And some old friends,” Yuuri said, and Victor laughed.  
  
“Yes, it was surprising to see Nica, wasn’t it? She’s as lovely as ever.” He smiled to himself.  
  
“She made it sound like you’d talked recently,” Yuuri said. “Do you two stay in touch?”  
  
Victor shrugged, looking out the window. The car turned onto the broad avenue that would eventually carry them to his neighborhood. “Not close contact, but a few texts a month. She’ll photograph articles when she sees me in them, and I do the same. Sort of an old joke.” Outside, the city passed in a blur, and Yuuri wondered whether he should ask anything more. It didn’t exactly hurt to hear Victor describe these old in-jokes he would never fully understand, but the feeling wasn’t perfectly pleasant, either. “If she’s back for a while, maybe I should ask her to step in at the rink a few times. Dima could use a fresh eye on his short.”  
  
That sounded like a bad idea, Yuuri thought, since Dima already had a choreographer who’d been paid handsomely to construct and fine-tune his program. She was someone Victor didn’t like — but that was hardly a good reason to try replacing her. “Don’t we have enough going on at the rink already?” he asked.  
  
“Probably.” Victor’s voice was bright enough to let Yuuri know that he was still considering it. Well, that was a problem for another day. “We should take her up on the dinner offer.” Under the orangish lights outside, he looked like a character from an old movie, cast in strange shadows with perfect lines. “She always knows the best places. This one time in Prague, we found this amazing little shop —“  
  
As he talked, Yuuri felt swamped by de ja vu. He knew about the little bread shop and its “amazing, wow, so amazing” cheese-curd pastries because Victor had told this exact story in an interview once. He’d described the hairy shopkeeper and the haunted streets and the dank river smell exactly so, though Yuuri got new details now, too, about how the rich food had made them both sick to their stomachs and how Veronique had broken a shoe and limped most of the way back to their hotel.  
  
He’d been Victor’s fan for so, so long. It was an identity he’d had trouble leaving behind. Even now, he knew there were elements of hero-worship to what he said, particularly around the media or other skaters. But he also knew what Victor looked like when he’d been woken in the middle of a decent night’s sleep to the biting ring of his phone, knew his blank stare and the slow blink of regret before he picked up Yakov’s latest call. He knew Victor well enough to know when he was avoiding thinking about one thing by talking about something else. So he nodded through the story and gave a tentative agreement to meeting for dinner in the distant, vague future, then turned back to watching the city slip past them.  
  
At home, Victor paused at the end of the hallway, watching while Yuuri pulled off his coat. It felt like a prompting kind of silence. Yuuri unwound his scarf and hung it beside his coat to dry.  
  
“You’re quiet,” Victor said, voice warm, just observing.  
  
“I’m OK,” he said.  
  
Victor nodded, saying nothing. He stared for another moment, and Yuuri looked back at him, then at the floor, then back at him. “OK,” Victor said. “Come to bed when you’re ready.”  
  
He turned, and Yuuri’s eyes focused on the curve of his shoulder. “I had your cologne!” he blurted.  
  
Victor paused, rested one hand on the wall. “What, tonight?” He shrugged. “You know I don’t mind.”  
  
“No, your — you, you made a cologne with Veronique. The season you did, ah, the waltz program?”  
  
“Oh, did we?” Victor turned, now, and bent one arm to scratch his chin. “Was it nice?”  
  
“It — no,” Yuuri said, already beginning to regret everything he was saying. “The bottle was, it was blue, shaped like a skate but —“  
  
“Oh, right,” Victor said, his eyes lighting up. “Right! It couldn’t stand up unless you bought the ladies’ version.”  
  
“Even then,” Yuuri said, and covered his face. “It, the bottle, it fell into my dresser and the cap wasn’t, ah, very strong? So all of my clothes —“  
  
“Which clothes?”  
  
“Not underwear,” he said, and Victor laughed, as though delighted that Yuuri could track his perverse mind. “They all smelled of it for weeks. Washing did almost nothing for it. Mari wanted to use the remaining bottle as cleaning fluid.”  
  
He could hear Victor’s grin as he spoke. “This is an excellent illustration in the need for personal product testing, I suppose.” Yuuri looked up when Victor’s hand landed gently on his shoulder.  
  
“I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad,” he said, a whispered rush. “That maybe it was as close as I’d ever get to smelling like, like —“  
  
“Like you were wearing my clothes?”  
  
“Close enough,” Yuuri said, and let Victor kiss him.  
  
“You want to do a cologne together?” he asked, voice syrupy with teasing and maybe desire. “I bet we could find a dozen places ready to market that.”  
  
“Ugh, no,” Yuuri said, resting his hands on Victor’s waist. “I just — sometimes, I get this reminder that you’re also the person that was in those magazine ads, ten years ago.”  
  
“So — you’re not jealous,” Victor said, smiling, “you’re starstruck.”  
  
“Ahhh," Yuuri moaned, his head dropping to Victor’s shoulder. Victor stepped closer, so their bodies were pressed entirely against one another’s. “God, are you turned on by this? You narcissist!”  
  
Victor giggled. He rested his forehead against Yuuri’s. “Veronique, eh?”  
  
“Mostly you,” Yuuri said, and Victor’s smile softened. “Always by you, Vitenka.”  
  
“Mm.” Victor framed his face between both hands. His skin was surprisingly cool, his long fingers sliding just into Yuuri’s hair. “Do you want to hear about my lovers, my Yurasha?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, breathing so gently, as though he could watch it ghost over Victor’s skin.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“They don’t matter.” He watched Victor’s eyes, saw them widen and crinkle in a smile. “They’ll never matter again.”  
  
“Oh yes?” Victor moved closer, his finger tips slipping down, his thumb now sliding over Yuuri’s lips. “Come and prove it.”


	9. January 7-12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next week (three days of it, at least). Bonus Yuri P. and video games!

That night they had the kind of sex that left Yuuri aching and wanting for days. Not physically, though there was a little twinge to his deepest stretches the next morning: no, this was the ache that came with having been so close, so vulnerable, in the arms of another person, and also with having to walk back into the world wondering whether everyone else could see it. He clung to Victor and recognized he was doing it, sliding under his arm as they took a walk through the silent streets the next morning to the only market open on the holiday. He sat too close as they wrapped the presents — too many, so many — that Victor had ordered for their rink mates, which they would drop off the next morning when training resumed. Later, he leaned against Victor’s shoulder, head snuggled close, when they sat watching old tape. At dinnertime, he lurked so close that Victor could barely move as he tried to reheat a pot of soup in the kitchen.

“Are you cold?” Victor asked, bemused.

But Yuuri knew he understood this type of clinging. He’d done it himself in the first few days back from the GPF and their respective Nationals, when they’d been recently and a bit recklessly married. They could use each other as touchstones; Yuuri felt safe being vulnerable to Victor.

It didn’t mean, though, that he didn’t have a few secrets.

Yuri Plisetsky came over for their promised video game nights twice that week. The first night, Victor came home at a decent hour, and he puttered around in the background while they played. The conversation stayed light and mostly game-focused. The second night, a Thursday, Yuri and Yuuri stopped for take-out on the way to the apartment, and Yuuri took a text from Victor warning of a late night ahead. That was enough to get Yuri talking.

Well, that, and Yuuri’s atrophied skills at Forza. Left to his own devices and preferences, Yuuri liked games of strategy. He’d played League of Legends and Overwatch in his time, but he liked a good single-player exploration game when he had the time to sink his teeth in. Since moving to Russia, though, he’d learned that his rinkmates — and Yuri in particular — liked competitive games the best. Thus when the newest version of Forza Horizon had come out at almost exactly the start of the Grand Prix series season, they’d started to play together in earnest to blow off steam. They were working on a Bucket List challenge that evening, Yuri driving a Ferrari and trying to break a speed record. Their progress through the game — inasmuch as there was a storyline — had been slow so far because they rarely had time to dedicate to racing or exploring the off-road challenges.

These nights were meant to fix that. More than that, they were meant to give Yuuri a chance to talk with Yuri without Victor as interlocutor.

“Beka says this was the hardest challenge,” Yuri muttered, crossing the finish line too late again.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “He had plenty of time to play. You know.”

Otabek had sat out the GPF that year after an injury following his medal at Rostelecom. No one had been more disappointed than Yuri, though Yuuri hadn’t been happy, either.

“How was his visit?” Yuuri had missed Otabek’s brief visit; he’d come with the other Kazak skaters to watch the Russian nationals.

He shrugged. “Fine. He’s going to come back after Worlds, I think, for a week or two.”

“Has he finished physical therapy?”

“Yeah,” Yuri said. “He said he’s going to Four Continents.”

Yuuri looked over, watching Yuri select his next race on the screen. “Is he competing?”

“Yeah,” he said, quietly, hands frozen on the XBox controller.

This was news. Otabek’s programs for the year were strong: he’d captured silver, just a few points shy of Yuuri’s gold, at Skate America, then taken gold over Yuri’s bronze at Rostelecom. If he hadn’t been injured, he would have knocked Yuri out of a spot at the final. If he could come back at full strength, he’d be in medal contention at 4CC and Worlds. Though they didn’t talk about it as a rule (because it felt like a jinx), placements at Worlds in particular were important. They decided how many skaters a country could send the next year. In places like Kazakhstan, Otabek’s placement was make-or-break for the future of the sport: without the possibility of international competitions and particularly the upcoming Olympics, the federation there wouldn’t give (or receive) enough funding to support up-and-coming skaters.

“Is he — has he been practicing?”

“I guess. He’s supposed to take it easy still.” Yuuri laughed. “Yeah, I know. But he does OK. He’s kind of like you, actually — does what he’s told, mostly. He’d probably do great with Victor as a coach, come to think of it.”

Yuuri looked down at his own controller. “Is he in the market for a new coach?”

“Eh, maybe,” Yuri said. “His coach from Amsterdam followed him back to Almaty, but now they want to go home. I don’t think he wants to move, but there’s not much opportunity there.”

“Most people have to move,” Yuuri said, then felt dumb when Yuri shot him a look. “I know you know.”

“I had to move,” Yuri said.

“I meant — most people have to move internationally.” That was true, really. Of the six skaters in the GPF this year, Yuuri and Phichit had both trained in America and Christophe had spent most of juniors living in France. Moving beyond those, Sara and Michele Crispino trained in Florida with Leo, and Guang-hong and Seung Gil both worked out of a club in Vancouver. Yuuri sometimes felt that Japan had lagged behind in developing a full skating roster because it had so few competitive skate clubs in the country. “I had to move to find, ah, the right coach.”

“Just ask,” Yuri said, sighing.

Finally, Yuuri thought. “Have you talked more to Josef?”

He fired up a new game, then thrust the controller at Yuuri. He crunched forward, automatically tensing as he started to drive. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment, and Yuuri nearly slid out of a turn. “I’m going to meet with him at Euros.”

“Meet, like, officially?”

“What, do you think I’ll have to curtsy or something? No, we’re just talking. Coffee or something.”

Yuuri let his focus settle on the screen in front of him for a moment. He was terrible at drifting, so he asked Yuri for a pointer, then tried it out. It went — well, not great, but better, and Yuri was softened by every chance to show his expertise. “If you talk to him anywhere with cameras — “

“I know,” Yuri said. For once, it didn’t sound like he was speaking through gritted teeth. Yuuri desperately focused on the game, knowing that the spell of honesty would be broken if he crashed.

“What do you think you want in a new coach?”

“It’s more what I don’t,” Yuri said, a little sneer added in. “You know I can’t work with Victor another year. There will be murder.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He did know. Their styles were too sharply contrasted to ever allow a trusting, coaching relationship to blossom. Honestly, Yuuri still held out hope that someday, Victor and Yuri could be friends, but he didn’t think they’d get there with Victor holding all of the authority in the relationship.

“And they — he’s got assistants,” Yuri said. “Fuck, let up on the brake and throttle up more.”

“OK,” Yuuri said, trying to do that and steer so that the car drifted out of the turn gracefully. He wound up crashing instead. “Ah. Maybe next round?”

“Yeah, just watch.” Yuri switched cars, apparently giving up on the challenge, and started a new drive.

“What kind of assistants?”

“A jump coach,” Yuri said, and Yuuri nodded.

Most big skating clubs had someone who specialized in jumps. Some — like Celestino — brought other professionals in for mini-clinics instead. Yakov did neither. He used his older skaters — like Victor and Georgi, and now sometimes Mila or Yuri — as models for the younger skaters, assigning the juniors to stay and observe senior practices. He brought in retired skaters some times to offer commentary, too, but generally, anyone who wanted specialist attention needed to seek it out on their own. It meant that some of his club’s skaters spent their summers at clinics in other countries, if they could scrape up the money.

Yuri, who’d never really had extra income, wouldn’t have been able to attend those clinics. He’d also been a natural-born jumper since he’d started, so the pain and changing coordination that had come with his growth spurt were doubly troubling. Tentatively, Yuuri said, “If you want to take a clinic with someone —“

“I don’t need your charity, or Victor’s,” Yuri said, tone immediately hard.

“I was going to say,” Yuuri said, after a minute’s pause to come up with something, “that I could invite someone.”

Yuri snorted. “As if. Yakov would —“ He stopped, realizing. On screen, his car was passed by three others. “Yakov’s not here.”

“No,” Yuuri agreed.

“And you lead Victor around by the dick.”

“Yurio!”

He laughed, leaning to the right as he navigated a turn. “Did I get the English right for that? I heard Mila say it.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “I have some influence, fine. Do you want me to ask?”

“What would you tell him?”

“The truth,” Yuuri said, and before Yuri could object, he added, “that I need to adjust my combination in the short and I want an outside observation of what I could change up and how.”

Yuri’s eyes narrowed. On screen, his car crashed against another, sending it flying to the side. “You’re changing your short?”

“Maybe,” Yuuri said. “What do you say?”

“You should leave that program alone,” he said. Yuuri waited him out. He ran through the course again, deftly avoiding the others, cursing in Russian under his breath. When he crossed the finish line, he kept staring at the screen. “OK,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I’m not talking to Josef.”

“I know,” Yuuri said. “But maybe we can at least set something up after Euros.”

Yuri grunted. “Maybe. Hey, you’re going, right?”

Yuuri looked up, thinking he’d missed his turn, but realized that Yuri meant something else. Euros. “Probably,” he said. “If Victor wants me there.”

“You should. You better,” Yuri said. “And you better go to junior nats here, too. You know the juniors are counting on it.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

Yuri rolled his eyes. “Don’t break Dima’s heart.”

“Stop. He’s — “

Before he got any further, they both heard Makkachin click across the floor, giving a soft and excited woof. Victor’s key met the lock a moment later. “Tadaima,” he called from the entry way. Makkachin snuffled at his hands, and Yuuri heard Victor murmuring to her.

“Okaeri,” Yuuri called. “Yurio’s here. There’s extra shchi in the refrigerator.”

“Ahh.” Victor padded over, shoes changed and coat off, then fell onto the couch behind them. “Have you beaten everyone?”

“Not yet,” Yuuri said, while Yuri said, “It’s sort of impossible with these lame-ass controllers. Otabek has an actual steering wheel.”

Yuuri nodded. “That explains it.” They’d played multiplayer with Otabek a few times remotely, and he was very good at some of the more complicated moves.

“I don’t understand. Where do you put it?” Victor asked, nudging the Xbox with his foot.

“Don’t touch,” Yuuri said, resting his hand on one ankle. He felt Victor wince, and wondered how much of his evening he’d spent practicing. “Do you want some food?”

“In a minute.” Victor let his head loll to the back of the couch. This was more exhaustion than he usually let show when Yuri was around, which probably meant the day had been worse than Yuuri yet knew. Yuri picked himself up and stalked off toward the bathroom. That either meant he was leaving soon or that he was trying to subtly give them a little space. Yuuri leaned against Victor’s legs and felt Victor’s hand in his hair a moment later.

“Did you beat everyone?” Yuuri asked.

Victor smiled. “Repeatedly. Actually, I was mostly working my own program tonight.”

Yuuri sat up. “I could’ve spotted you.”

He glanced at the hallway. “Zhora came in,” he said. “It was fine. Actually, I think I’ve solved my own coaching problem.”

“What’s that?” Yuuri asked.

“I need a coach of record for the competition. Technically, I can still list Yakov, but I also need a current coach, and the federation says they have to have training or experience, or they won’t pay travel. So…”

Yuuri laughed without meaning to. “Georgi is your coach?”

Victor’s grin turned almost predatory. “Won’t that be one for the press? Rivals turned coaching team, I guess.” He rolled his eyes. “It will be good for Zhora’s career, at least, and I may need his help wrangling everyone at Euros. He’s good with travel. Oh, speaking of which, he’s getting pretty serious about his ice show idea. We should work out your visa problem soon, yes?” Victor’s brother worked as an immigration lawyer in Moscow; Victor had chatted with him briefly the week before, and established that Yuuri needed to do a bit of extra paperwork, and perhaps travel back briefly to Japan, to make sure he was in the clear to work for any kind of pay in Russia.

“OK,” Yuuri agreed.

Victor yawned grandly. “Shchi, you said?”

“I’ll get you some.”

While he was working in the kitchen, he heard Yuri saying his short goodbyes in the living room. When Yuri appeared in the kitchen, Yuuri turned to say his own good-nights. “Not a fucking word,” Yuri muttered.

“I know,” Yuuri said. “Text me that you’re home safely.”

“Ugh.” Yuri’s eye roll was at least a double.

Yuuri fed Victor and put him to bed that night, and then thought about turning off Victor’s phone. It had so little charge left anyway that if he left it sitting on the counter, it would naturally sleep through Yakov’s next call. He sighed, picked up the phone, and plugged it in on its usual charger, on Victor’s bedside table. Maybe soon, he thought, looking down at the grayish smudges beneath Victor’s eyelids. He felt guilty that he hadn’t even asked about Yakov in the last few days. Before he went to bed, he resolved to do better.


	10. Saturday, 13 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Videos of skating, videos from the past...

The next day, he woke to Victor doing push-ups in the living room, phone already abandoned on the coffee table nearby. “Everything’s fine,” he said, when Yuuri asked about Yakov, a clear sign that it a) wasn’t fine and b) wasn’t something Victor wanted to talk about yet.   
  
“I’ll ride in with you today,” he said, instead of asking. Victor thanked him, quietly, as agreement.   
  
They had less than two weeks to go until Europeans started, which meant the Russian team was a bit more energetic, a bit more frenetic, than usual. Yuuri decided to stay out of the way by spending a little concentrated practice time on the quad-quad combo. Since he hadn’t yet told Victor he was trying it once again, he didn’t use their coaching time; instead, after his stretching and morning coffee, he went to the third rink, the smallest, and took an hour of ice time during the member pass session. Today, only two other people were skating as well, a tall thin man and a short, red-haired woman. Both looked familiar and serious enough about their skating that Yuuri didn’t mark them as fans. The stands were empty, which made it less probable that anyone would be recording.  
  
Quads weren’t just triples done faster, as hard as Yuri tried to make them look that way. They took more power, sharper and quicker lift off, and tighter arm positioning, and they meant a harder landing. At this point in his career, even a perfect quad was a bit painful, clearly a move that the human body wasn’t perfectly constructed to complete. When they’d started practicing the quad-quad combos last summer, they’d both felt the strain of it afterwards. Yuuri had kept up the off-ice practice of the combo as a challenge once or twice a week, which Victor knew and supported. He joked that it was the only way to truly honor Yuuri’s athletic stamina.   
  
That training would help now. He put on extra padding around his knees and ankles and did a succession of triple-triple and then quad-triple combinations to get into the rhythm of it. By the time he felt warmed up mentally, it was only him and the thin gentleman on the ice. He was absorbed in a workout at the far end, ear buds in and humming to himself, his back to Yuuri.   
  
So Yuuri set up his phone to record, then he tried it: quad Lutz, quad toe.   
  
The Lutz went OK. It felt like good height and good speed, and his landing was hard and solid. The quad toe, though, felt — well, it felt hard. He lifted up into it and knew he hadn’t made it high enough, and he made a split-second decision to pop it instead of falling.  
  
Keep going, he thought, and did a wide circle before trying again.  
  
On the fourth try, he got the right number of rotations on both jumps but fell after the toe. That was the best of the bunch — and he tried at least a dozen times. Any more, and he thought he might be risking injury, either through overwork or from Victor deciding to murder him when he showed up to their scheduled practice already completely worn out.   
  
That fourth try, though, had been close. If he could get the combo up to even that level of not-quite, he’d be as close as he had been the first time he’d performed the quad flip. He left the rink feeling slightly numbed by what he’d realized: this was possible. He’d need help, but he could add a quad-quad combination to his short program.   
  
And that meant something else: It was time to get Victor involved again.  
  
He returned to the rink in time for senior practice that afternoon, having spent most of the rest of the day in cross training that didn’t stress his knees and ankles. While he put on his skates, he watched Victor standing in the middle, directing traffic and looking around with his chin cupped in one hand.   
  
Across the rink, Yuri was already on the ice. He curved around the back and then dropped into a flying sit spin like grace on wings, his form tight, the spin perfectly centered. Then, as he finished and started to glide out of the spin, his foot caught, and he stumbled just briefly. Probably no one else saw that, Yuuri thought, surprised.  
  
“Yura, what was that?” Victor asked. His tone was sharper than usual, and Yuuri wondered if something had happened before he’d arrived.  
  
Yuri sniped back something in Russian that made Mila click her tongue. Victor leaned on one leg in the center of the rink, posture suddenly so casual that it must have been a pretty terrible insult.   
  
“Oh, really,” Victor said, in clear, ringing English. “What a wonderful idea. Should we have a competition right now, then? There are certainly enough judges around.”  
  
Yuri replied in Russian again, hands on his hips. A strand of hair had fallen into his face, and it blew forward with every new exhalation. Yuuri caught a few words: competition, and boyfriend, and the harshest form of stupid.   
  
“As your coach —“  
  
“Temporary,” Yuri growled.   
  
“Still,” Victor said, unfazed, “perhaps a bit of competitive spirit would do you good.”  
  
By now, Yuuri had his skates on and had reached the edge of the rink. Even from this far away, he could see Yuri didn’t look well: he was paler than usual, which was saying something, the gray bands below his eyes unpleasantly raccoon-like. This was worse than he’d looked the night before, by far, and it made Yuuri wonder if something had happened. If he hadn’t been sleeping, that would explain the wobble on the ice. Probably, he needed rest much more than he needed to be run through some artificial paces by Victor, but Yuuri was at a loss as to how he might help.  
  
Then he saw Mila across the rink. She tipped her head, just slightly, toward Yuri, then looked at Victor and pointed her thumb back at herself. Yuuri nodded, though he wasn’t completely sure how he’d drawn the short stick here.   
  
“Viiiiiitya,” Mila said, gliding toward the center. Her voice was a dramatic whine, and she was holding her phone out. “Sara’s working on a triple Axel.”  
  
Mila was the only one of the Russian skaters who called Victor “Vitya.” Yuuri had noticed this before Yakov had fallen ill, but since then, it had become even more pronounced. The juniors didn’t use the nickname out of some sense of propriety, apparently; they were substantially younger than Victor, so the diminutive was inappropriate. Mila, despite being 10 years Victor’s junior, seemed to treat him mostly as a peer. He, in turn, seemed to be willing to mentor her instead of taking on a formal coaching role. That was nice, and it made her a willing co-conspirator in sometimes handling the Victor-Yuri conflicts a the rink.  
  
Now, she had him absorbed already in footage of Sara Crispino’s harnessed practice of the triple Axel. That left Yuuri to deal with Yuri. Maybe he should take a jumping harness, he thought, carefully starting his warm-up. He could perhaps catch Yuri in it like a fish on a pole and drag him off the rink.  
  
Yuri had settled into the far end of the rink, skating the furious dance pattern from his world junior program that was his usual warm-up. Yuuri tried to make it look natural as he moved toward him, then gave up and just skated right toward the end of Yuri’s sequence.   
  
“What,” he hissed, twirling as he hit the top of his curve.   
  
There was nothing he could say, Yuuri realized. No magic words that would convince Yuri to share whatever it was he was going through, no tricky distraction he could employ, no video game, nothing. Yuri was angry and unwell, and there was basically nothing Yuuri could do about it until Yuri either decided to ask for help or got to the point where he couldn’t refuse it.  
  
This was a fundamental difference between Victor and Yuuri. Victor saw a friend upset and wanted to do something, to fix it, to make everything better. Yuuri saw a friend upset and had no idea what to do, so he defaulted to what worked for him: pulling up a literal or figurative chair next to them, offering his shoulder to lean on, and agreeing that things just sometimes sucked.  
  
That’s what he would do for Yuri, then. He probably couldn’t get him off the ice, but he could make sure he wasn’t alone while he was there.  
  
“Horse?” Yuuri said, when Yuri came back for another loop.   
  
Yuri stopped, spraying Yuuri with ice. “Hah? Euro’s is practically tomorrow, and you want to use practice time for a dumb game?”  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “OK, then, what? Victor’s tied up with Mila for a while, so — “  
  
“So run your program,” Yuri said.  
  
“Don’t you —“  
  
“And I’ll watch and let you know where you still suck so much,” Yuri said, and then, quick as a flash, “and then you can do it for me.”  
  
Yuuri kept his face carefully controlled as he shrugged, trying so so hard not to show how happy this idea made him. “OK, I guess,” Yuuri said. “But I’m marking the jumps.”  
  
Yuri raised an eyebrow. “You hurt?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, “just, ah. I already had a session this morning, and I don’t need Victor to see me falling this afternoon.”  
  
Yuri looked briefly surprised by Yuuri’s admission. “Whatever,” he said. “Get going.”  
  
Yuuri managed to stretch his free skate out well beyond its usual time. He stopped every chance he had to get feedback from Yuri, who leaned against the boards for the full display. As Yuuri came out of his long step sequence, he looked over and saw Yuri had a hand propped under his chin, body starting to sag just slightly toward the wall.   
  
“OK,” he said, stopping a foot behind Yuri and making him jump. “That’s it. Off the ice.”  
  
“What — you can’t —“  
  
“You fell asleep watching my program,” Yuuri said, “and, ah ah, before you try and say it’s that boring, you also napped through Mila trying to waltz lift Victor at the other end.”  
  
Yuri’s head snapped up. “What?”  
  
“Too late now,” Yuuri said, shaking his head.  
  
“I don’t need —“  
  
“You do,” Yuuri said, keeping all the gentleness he might feel out of his voice. “If you go now, I’ll even pretend to Victor that I know what the problem is.”  
  
He looked up, then, and his exhaustion was obvious in the way his eyes widened so dramatically, showing so much unintentionally displayed emotion. “You’d cover for me?”  
  
“If you get off the rink in the next thirty seconds, yes," Yuuri said.  
  
Yuri was off like a shot. Victor’s back was turned, but Yuuri had a feeling he knew something was happening. When he turned around, he didn’t look surprised not to see Yuri. He looked at Yuuri, raised an eyebrow, and then shook his head with a short laugh when Yuuri shrugged, exaggerated, palms open and held up.  
  
“Is this sabotage?” Victor asked, skating an arc in front of Yuuri. “Sending your competitors away so you can have my full attention?”  
  
“Mm,” Yuuri said, “I can think of other things I could do to grab your attention.”   
  
Victor laughed. “Perhaps we can talk about those, in detail, later?”  
  
“Perhaps,” Yuuri agreed, and then followed Victor’s unspoken direction to start his program again, from the center of the ice.

* * *

  
Phichit had this useful theory about other skaters. They were either “inside” or “outside” people. They’d used it as shorthand at the rink in Detroit, speaking in Japanese (which Phichit spoke fluently thanks to a childhood spent in Tokyo), a quick way to categorize the many novices that moved through.  
  
All skaters fell and had bad days. Inside skaters took the falls and bad days to heart: they took the falls personally, as shortcomings in their own technique or skill. Outside skaters blamed external factors: bad ice, not enough warm-up time, the distraction of others on the ice, new laces.   
  
Very few outside skaters made it to the professional, senior level. Professional, adult skating required the ability to take and process criticism. In the same vein, Phichit used to claim that Yuuri was the most inside skater he’d ever met, able to take even criticism meant for others personally. Being prone to internalizing everything wasn’t a particularly healthy way to compete — something his therapist, Yeva, had confirmed.   
  
Victor was a perfect balance of inside and outside: he took criticism cheerfully and, sometimes, too dismissively, but was able to figure out incisively what really was his fault and what could be due to other factors.  
  
Yuri Plisetsky was the most outside skater competing on the senior circuit. He took criticism the same way he took praise: in bad temper, and defensively. He was capable of recognizing what he needed to work on, and he was disciplined when it came to practice, but to really engage him, his coach had to speak in the language of challenge and competition. He was a perfect fit for Yakov in this respect. Yakov had constantly challenged his skaters and hadn’t been above pitting them against one another. Victor had survived his regime in part because he’d helped build it, and in part because he’d been superior enough for most of his career to evade the head-to-head combat that the others faced daily.   
  
Yuri, though, was a complete product of Yakov’s methods. He barely knew how to be a rinkmate, let alone a friend. He automatically classified people as “threats” or “losers.” In the last year, as his own physical skills had become less reliable, he’d been forced to reckon with some of this, Yuuri thought, but he hadn’t fully integrated the idea that skating was actually an individual sport. It was you against yourself, not you against the ice, or against your teammates, or against the world.   
  
That Yuuri had been able to break through his protective outer layer at all to form something of a rough, prickly friendship was pretty amazing. It didn’t surprise him that Victor hadn’t had the same success, no matter how much older-brotherly affection Victor might privately confess to having toward Yuri.   
  
Yuri’s particular set of challenges was what Yuuri was thinking about that evening as he started to broach the idea of bringing in a jump coach for a clinic.   
  
Victor’s immediate reaction was — nothing.  
  
“Sounds OK,” he said, spooning a few more vegetables onto his plate.  
  
Yuuri stared. Victor had been distracted since he had arrived home, but Yuuri had been pretty sure that skating talk would get him out of it. Instead, now, he saw the far-away look in his eye and realized that Victor was completely somewhere else. “Vitya? Did you hear what I said?”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Victor said, and then looked up. He squinted. “Ah. No?”  
  
Yuuri sighed. “What happened today? You seemed like you were already frustrated when I went in for afternoon practice.”  
  
“Nothing happened, really.” Victor reached for the carton that held the tomato sauce and added a bit more of that to his plate. “Well. Dima’s choreographer was there today.”  
  
“Oh, right.” Yuuri had seen Dima and his mother in the hallway that afternoon, chatting to a striking blonde woman who had looked familiar. He hadn’t made the connection, but now it made sense. Beatriz Carlo was in fairly high demand in the juniors circuit; the junior world bronze medalist in his final year had been her client. “Working out the combination problem?”  
  
“Mm.” Victor speared a few peppers on his fork but twirled them instead of eating. “You would think.”  
  
Slowly, Yuuri managed to get the story from him, in dramatic dribs and drabs: Victor had asked for a meeting with Beatriz to fine-tune Dima’s program for Euros. Dima’s placing there would determine whether Russia decided to authorize him as an alternate for Worlds as a senior skater or simply send him on to Junior Worlds. Victor felt the program needed to be the perfect balance, a showcase of what Dima could do and had done successfully in juniors while also pointing out his potential in senior competitions. He needed higher level variations on everything from spins to steps.   
  
“Does he want to compete in seniors, though?” Yuuri asked, when Victor paused to take a bite.  
  
Victor raised an eyebrow. “What? Yes, of course, he’s nearly sixteen.”  
  
“But — “ Victor still looked perplexed, and Yuuri decided it was a conversation for another day. “What was the problem with Beatriz?”  
  
Victor frowned and launched into a dramatic description of what was ultimately a minor disagreement about timing and choreographic elements. “It drains the beauty from the entire thing,” he said, finishing his description and punctuating his disgust with a slap to the table.  
  
Yuuri nodded, keeping his mouth full of food so he wouldn’t have to reply. He understood Victor’s argument, really he did, but he also knew that it was not, really, Victor’s call at all. If Dima was pleased with his choreography, Victor’s job was to coach him into succeeding with it — not to redo the program to fit Victor’s own aesthetic.  
  
“Maybe you could talk to him,” Victor said, suddenly, eyebrows raised.  
  
Yuuri swallowed frantically. “No, no.”  
  
“Yes, yes!” Victor grinned. “He’d listen to you.”  
  
“First, don’t use that poor boy’s misguided crush against either of us,” Yuuri said. “Second, it’s not my job — or yours — to get him to change his mind about the choreography unless he’s doing it badly or can’t perform it well. If he likes it — I know, I know, it’s a sign of bad taste, but that’s not a crime.”  
  
“It should be,” Victor muttered. “How can I let him go on the ice with that sequence?”  
  
“You coach him into making it something beautiful,” Yuuri said. “Just like you did with me. It’s — if he likes it, that’s important, too. I know you know that.”  
  
Victor sighed. He pushed a spoonful of tomato sauce around his plate. “You’re right, of course. Of course you’re right.”  
  
Yuuri smiled. “Say that again, but let me get my phone. I want to make it my ring tone.” Makkachin padded over and plopped her head in Victor’s lap, and Yuuri could basically watch him relaxing. “So, can I ask my question, now?”  
  
“Yes, what is it?”  
  
He explained his desire for a jump clinic. Victor frowned, but it was the considering frown of concentration. “For your combination? I think the Lutz has been much better.”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri said, “but — I’ve been thinking. What if I added a quad toe?”  
  
His face scrunched as though he was calculating figures. “The base score is so much lower, and that’s too many jumps,” Victor said. “You’ll get a penalty.”  
  
“No — what if I add it to my combination. The quad Lutz-quad toe.”  
  
He watched Victor’s face run through a bevy of emotions: confusion, then surprise, then calculation, and then, ah, joy. “Really? Have you kept practicing it?”  
  
“Just a little,” Yuuri said.  
  
Victor leaned forward, elbows on either side of his plate. “And?”  
  
Yuuri felt his face start to warm, but his voice stayed steady. “I got close once. Got the rotations but fell at the end.”  
  
“Wow," Victor said, genuinely pleased. “Did you record?”  
  
“Some,” Yuuri admitted. His camerawork hadn’t captured everything, but it was enough. He fished it out of his pocket, pulled up the video, and slid it over. Victor watched, his eyebrows raising and falling throughout.   
  
“Wow, Yura,” he said, looking up. “Ah! Now I want to work on this, live.” He watched as Victor’s eyes slid over to the clock on his phone before he shook his head. They had somehow become too old for midnight runs to the rink around the time Victor had gained the freedom to do it whenever he wanted. “Show me tomorrow?”  
  
The next day was Saturday, usually their rest day, but since the New Year holiday was approaching, they had shifted to normal practice instead. “Could we get reserved time in the early evening?” Yuuri asked. He didn’t want to show the rest of the group his non-mastery of the combination quite yet.  
  
“Of course! Except, oh,” he said, and now he did pick up his phone. “I told Nica we were free for dinner tomorrow.”  
  
“Oh. Oh?” Yuuri said, processing this in two clumps. “We — ah, dinner? With Veronique?”  
  
Victor’s grin turned teasing. “Your celebrity crush.”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “I’m having dinner with my celebrity crush right now.”  
  
His fingers were swept into Victor’s, then, both of his hands cradling Yuuri’s. “Ah! What if, we could ask her to meet us at the rink, and go from there? I think late supper is fine with her.”  
  
Yuuri agreed because there was nothing else he could do. Dinner with Veronique Fontaine and Victor Nikiforov would be fine. Sure. Fine. Not at all intimidating or like an out-of-body experience that would have likely killed his fourteen-year-old self. Nope. All fine.  
  
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “I was going to suggest that you wear the same outfit you wore to Natalya’s party, but —“  
  
“But?” Yuuri drew his hands back from Victor’s. “Didn’t it look OK?”  
  
“More than OK," Victor said, grinning. “Perhaps too OK.”  
  
Yuuri smiled. “You controlled yourself pretty well the other night.”  
  
“Perhaps it’s not me I’m worried about,” he said, and Yuuri laughed. The very idea of Veronique being attracted to him was laughable. “Ah, no. You’re right. You aren’t exactly her type.”  
  
Yuuri fought a frown, and he couldn’t understand why. He was clearly not Veronique’s type. “Not famous enough?” he asked, picking up Victor’s empty plate. He stacked it with his own and headed for the dishwasher.   
  
“You are more than famous enough,” he said, “and you know it.” Yuuri shrugged one shoulder, concentrating on loading up the dishes. “She likes arrogant men.”  
  
Yuuri looked back at Victor, who spread out his hands in a gesture that probably meant, “Trust me,” or maybe, “I don’t know, either.” “Arrogant?” Yuuri asked. “That’s not exactly your style. You’re confident, not arrogant. It’s not arrogance if you can really do all the things you think you can do.”  
  
Victor leaned his head on one hand. “That’s flattering, but I’m not the man I was ten years ago. Plus, it’s a quality she likes because it’s one she shares. I mean this as a compliment. She’s one of the most, ah, confident women I’ve ever known.”  
  
“She always sounded very smart, in the videos.”  
  
“Oo, Yuuri, did you watch videos of us?”  
  
He sighed in lieu of response, as it was too late to deny it now. Instead, Yuuri turned to see if anything needed to be scrubbed by hand. He wished they hadn’t ordered in; there would be so many more dishes to do. Well, the counters could use a quick wipe, he decided, ducking to gather a cloth. “I couldn’t find translations very often,” he said.  
  
“If you ever want to watch them again, I solemnly promise to translate.”  
  
Yuuri had a sharp, nauseating image of what watching Victor Nikiforov videos while sitting next to a translating Victor Nikiforov would be like. Without two or three stiff drinks, he thought it sounded like a perfect recipe for dying of mortification. “Aahhh, no, thank you,” he said, and Victor laughed.   
  
Makkachin appeared, face still dripping water from a recent drink, and she nudged Yuuri’s hand. “I’ll take her," Victor said. After he’d left, Yuuri leaned against the counter and covered his face for a moment. When he drew his hands back, he knew he was smiling like the Cheshire Cat. It was just too unreal. His life was just too amazing.


	11. Saturday, 14 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year Again!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild warning for major character mild injury.

Sat. Jan. 14  
  
Reality reasserted itself the next day. It was a Saturday, and not the usual day for everyone to be present, but because of upcoming Russian New Year celebrations, everyone came in for a work day. Yuuri spent most of his morning practice sprawled over the ice. He didn’t come close to completing the quad-quad. Worse than that, he landed hard on his right wrist on a particularly unexpected bad fall, basically having snagged his toe pick after the first landing. When he tried to push himself back up, sharp pain lanced through his arm, and he crumpled back to the ice.  
  
“Ouch,” said the tall red-haired man, who was again his only rink companion.  
  
Yuuri nodded, holding his right wrist with his left hand. He pushed up to his knees and then wobbled up to his feet, keeping his head down. What a mess, he thought, reaching the edge of the rink. One of the first things he’d learned as a skater was not to catch himself like this, and what did he go and do? He stripped off his glove, wincing in spite of himself. It didn’t feel broken, but it hurt enough that he couldn’t really move it. Reaching for his hard guards was challenge enough; he genuinely hoped he wouldn’t have to ask the stranger for help removing his skates.  
  
“Yuuri!” He looked up in surprise, almost stumbling, when he saw Dima standing at the bottom of the nearest set of bleacher seats. “Are you all right?”  
  
“I, ah," Yuuri said, then shrugged, which made him wince. How stupid to have fallen like this! “I think it’s not too bad.”  
  
Dima frowned. He wore a long, blue sweater that looked rough and homemade, and it swamped him so thoroughly that he looked closer to 12 than 15. “Maybe you should see Marina.”  
  
It was sensible, Yuuri knew. Injuries like these were inevitable during the training season, and avoiding medical attention would probably make things worse. Besides, if he didn’t go now, Victor — as coach or partner — would make him go later. And he’d met with Marina before. She was kind and professional and spoke perfect, American English, and seeing her would also set a good example for Dima.  
  
So Yuuri took a deep breath, released it, and then did that two more times before he trusted himself to speak. “OK,” he said, holding out his guards. “Do you — would you help me take off my skates, first?”  
  
Marina diagnosed a mild sprain and suggested Ibuprofen, a wrap, and two days off ice before a return evaluation. She smiled but looked him in the eye as she said, “I know sometimes skaters think that’s negotiable, but I promise, it’s not. This is mild for now, but if you were to fall again in the same way — it could be much more serious.”  
  
His wrist ached and had begun to swell. Yuuri knew he could skate through it, but he didn’t want to, not at the moment. “I understand.”  
  
It wasn’t such bad news. As Marina outlined the recommended exercises and training adjustments for the next few days, Yuuri kept reminding himself of that. He had a month until Four Continents. A day or two off the ice would be torture, but he’d overcome similar small injuries countless times. This would be the first time he’d been even slightly injured while having the whole of the Sports Champions Club at his disposal. It didn’t exactly erase the instant shot of anxiety spiking in his stomach, but it helped.  
  
“Now usually,” Marina said, her eyes crinkled at the edges, her voice kind, “I would have to inform your coach right away.” That made sense: At Celestino’s rink, he’d similarly given up his rights to medical privacy as part of their working contract. He didn’t have a contract, per se, with Victor, but he had signed a bevy of forms to become a member at the Sports Champions Club. “As he is also your fiancé, can I trust he would rather find out from you?”  
  
“Yes, thank you,” Yuuri said. Honestly, he wouldn’t mind having Victor called in at the moment, even though it would be a silly interruption of his work. He could picture Victor taking up too much space in the tiny white medical cubicle, asking a million questions, simultaneously reassuring him and lecturing him on proper landing technique. “Ah, I’m sure he’d also like to see the full report.”  
She nodded. “We send it to all of your staff — coach, regular trainer, mental health, nutritionist, everyone. You’ll be copied on the e-mail.”  
  
That was surprising but, Yuuri thought, efficient. Hearing her mention mental health reminded him that talking to Yeva would be a very good idea, and one he wouldn’t really be able to escape if she was notified of an injury. He took a slow, deep breath. “Thank you.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” she said, testing out the Japanese he’d taught her when they’d met last.  
  
Yuuri managed a smile and gave her a small bow. “Also, ah, I don’t know if it matters for paperwork, but Victor and I are married, now.”  
  
She grinned broadly, clapping her hands once. “Oh! Congratulations! Are you, ah, is it Nikiforov-san now?”  
  
He waved his good hand, half-half. “I think I will add it to my name. Not sure.”  
  
“Take your time. Let us know if you change your name so we can have updated information.” He agreed. She stood to walk him back out to the main hall. “And remember: two days off, rest and ice and bandage, keep it elevated.” She handed him an ice pack and a long bandage that he could use to replace the current wrap. “Be careful!”  
  
Yuuri took the advice, the ice pack, and the wrap, then found Dima still hovering in the hallway outside. His eyes were wide. He had Yuuri’s skate bag slung over his shoulder, both hands holding the strap. Yuuri was grateful to see he didn’t yet have a phone in his hand. If Phichit had been here, he’d likely already be updating the rink via group text, if nothing more public. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Fine, fine,” Yuuri assured him. He kept his wrist tucked close to his jacket, which Dima had helped him slide on. “Just a sprain. Very mild.”  
  
“Oh, good,” Dima said. He did actually look relieved. “Are you — do you need anything? I can open doors for you if you’re going back toward the East Rink!”  
  
Yuuri had a sudden, disturbing vision of Dima meeting Minami, and he tried to hide his smile. “That would be nice. Thank you.”  
  
Dima nodded again, and they started to walk. It would take a few minutes to get there, moving from the carpeted small offices of the trainers out to the long concrete hallway that connected everything. Yuuri cleared his throat and glanced at Dima. “Have you been injured before?” he asked.  
  
This was pretty typical locker room talk for skaters, and Dima took it in stride. “I broke my nose the first week I was on the ice, but nothing much since then. I had a hamstring strain at the start of last season.”  
  
“Ouch,” Yuuri said, sympathetically.  
  
“You?”  
  
“Nothing major.”  
  
“Lucky!”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He knew it was luck and his fantastic stamina: other skaters tended to injure themselves when they pushed past exhaustion. Yuuri rarely had call for pushing himself into total physical exhaustion. He did, however, sometimes get sloppy when he’d been doing too much in too short of a time. “I shouldn’t have landed on my hands today,” he muttered, almost to himself.  
  
“Better than your nose.” Dima smiled a little. “At least, in my experience.”  
  
That made Yuuri laugh, which in turn made Dima’s smile grow slightly. “Fair point,” Yuuri said. “Victor would flip.”  
  
Dima paused, just outside the door to the East Rink observation area. “Oh,” he said, as though just realizing something. “Will he be upset, about your wrist?”  
  
Yuuri frowned, not sure how to answer the question because Dima’s tone implied some kind of personal worry. “No,” he said, finally. “You mean, as a coach? I don’t think he’d be mad about an injury to anyone, though he might be frustrated if I was really doing something irresponsible.”  
  
“Coach Yakov," Dima started, then shook his head and opened the door for them both.  
  
Victor was in the middle of a one-on-one session with Yuri when they walked in. They were snapping at each other in Russian in one corner of the rink. Yuuri snuck in unnoticed and took a seat in the small bleachers past the door. Dima came, too, apparently at loose ends for the time being. His quick mention of Yakov had made Yuuri curious, but he couldn’t think of how to ask Dima to continue what he’d been saying. Dima seemed closed off again, or at least happy to be quiet, his hands curled over his drawn up knees.  
  
The bleachers around them — really just two rows of thin, always cold metal, built to let parents wait out private lessons — were empty as usual. Yuuri wondered whether the other juniors might come through soon, looking for him to start his workout. Dima would probably go with them.  
  
Yuri demonstrated twenty seconds of footwork for Victor, who shrugged and asked him to do it again. Yuuri didn’t want to watch them, but he couldn’t quite look away. The tension between them was so different than what it had been between Yuri and Yakov. With Yakov, there had been all of the same teenaged attitude, and most of the same bristling anger, but less defensiveness. It was strange to think of Victor as harder to work with than his famously gruff coach.  
  
Yuuri glanced at Dima, who looked equally riveted by the show on the ice. “How long have you been training here?  
  
Dima shrugged. “Just a few years. Almost three, now. Well, more than that if you count clinics and stuff, but I didn’t really go to many of those since we lived far away.”  
  
“Ah, where did you move from?”  
  
He named a town Yuuri had never heard of, then smiled. “No one’s heard of it. It’s — not much of a town. Moscow is the closest big city, four hours away.”  
  
“Is that where you trained before?”  
  
“I trained near home," Dima said. “The next town over had a rink, and I went to Moscow for clinics or camps. I didn’t get serious too long before I came here.”  
  
On the ice, Yuri and Victor had paused to talk through something again. Yuuri looked at Dima. “You speak English well.”  
  
“My grandfather is British. He lived with us when I was little. I grew up with BBC shows.”  
  
Yuuri was about to ask how long Dima had been skating, but Victor and Yuri’s involved conference suddenly ended, and Yuri pelted to the center of the ice. He seemed to count himself off, then he started a step sequence from what looked like the short program. He’d been trying to incorporate more active, high-energy movements, Yuuri knew, because he felt stifled by the smooth (but difficult, level 4) sequence Victor had originally choreographed. So far, nothing they’d tried worked well, in part because Yuri’s artistry was still underdeveloped.  
  
Now, he made use of the full ice, swerving both his skate path and his body in time to the short program music humming through Yuuri’s head. They’d added two new elements: a sharp, almost full turn, and a dynamic kick that seemed like the setup for a spin but ultimately faked the audience out. Dropping out of that move, he slammed to a stop, chest heaving.  
  
“Yes, like that, but with grace!” Victor yelled.  
  
Whatever Yuri shouted back, it made Dima blush.  
  
Yuuri watched as Victor pushed off the wall, ready to demonstrate, probably. Yuuri knew that this was a bad idea. Yuri didn’t need someone showing him how much better they could do his routine, after all. He was open to examples only on his own terms, and this moment wasn’t going to be one of those times.  
  
So, before Victor could get started and things could really escalate, Yuuri called out. “Vitya," he said, wincing at the volume of his own call.  
  
Victor turned on the ice and then smiled across at him. “Yura! And Dima, hello. Are you here to watch Yurio?”  
  
Yuuri shook his head and motioned that Victor should come closer. He skated over, and Yuuri met him near the boards. He could see when Victor noticed the bandage Marina had wrapped around his wrist. “What’s this?” he asked, voice light but eyes focused intently.  
  
“I fell. It’s nothing," he said, swiftly, watching Victor’s face fall. “A mild, very mild, sprain.”  
  
“Yuuuuuuri,” Victor said, a soft, low exhale of his name.  
  
“Barely anything.” He caught Victor’s eye by ducking, made sure he was looking right at Yuuri. “I saw Marina.”  
  
“How long off the ice?”  
  
Of course, he’d ask that first. “She recommended, ah, two days, but —”  
  
“No buts,” Victor said. He reached out, his long fingers tracing over the back of Yuuri’s injured wrist. “What happened?”  
  
“I fell,” he said, again.  
  
“Yes, where?”  
  
“West rink,” Yuuri said. “Trying the, ah, the new move.”  
  
Victor’s eyes snapped up. “On your own? Yuuri —“  
  
“No, there were others there,” he said. “Dima was there, actually.” And only as he said it did Yuuri fully comprehend what that meant. Dima had been there, watching him. He’d seen Yuuri try and fail (and fail, and fail) to land the quad-quad combo. Well, that, combined with the awkwardness of getting help with his skates and jacket earlier, would probably cure the hero worship.  
  
Victor murmured a short thanks to Dima in Russian, and Dima nodded frantically, already backing toward the door. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” he said. “I am glad you’re OK, Yuuri.”  
  
“Spasibo.” And then Dima vanished, leaving Yuuri briefly surprised. Maybe he’d just realized the time.  
  
Victor sighed, again, fingers now resting just above the edge of Yuuri’s bandage wrap. “Are you going home?”  
  
Yuuri shrugged, then winced. “I don’t know. I could stay and watch.”  
  
“Don’t do that. It’s boring,” Victor said, clearly reliving some experience of his own. In truth, Yuuri wouldn’t mind staying, really. The company of others and the reassuring sounds of skating work would likely act as a balm against his jagged nerves. “Besides,” Victor said, “you’re supposed to take it easy, hm? Rest and compress and elevate?”  
  
“I can do that here.”  
  
Victor raised an eyebrow. “Should I draw a picture of what resting looks like? Would that be helpful for you?”  
  
“Shut up," Yuuri said, but he smiled. He saw a flash just over Victor’s shoulder and ducked his head around to stare out at the rink. Yuri had just finished his step sequence, apparently, because he’d flung himself into an attempt at the quad Salchow. No such luck, Yuuri thought, as Yuri landed on the wrong edge and then tripped over himself trying to set up his combination.  
  
“Damn it," Victor whispered, having half turned to add Yuri to his line of sight.  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, laying his good hand over Victor’s forearm. “Let him work it out.”  
  
Victor stared at Yuuri for a moment, then nodded, though Yuuri had no idea what he’d seen. “We could take an early lunch," he suggested.  
  
“Perfect.”  
  
Victor chatted with him through the few remaining moments of Yuri’s practice time. When he skated toward the exit, Victor caught him with a quick word, then glanced at Yuuri. “The step sequence is better,” he said.  
  
Yuri grunted. “Whatever.”  
  
It was better than a curse, at least.  
  
Over soup and sandwiches for lunch, Yuuri managed to convince Victor that he’d be very calm and well-rested at the rink that afternoon. That meant he had a front-row seat for junior and senior free-skate time. The juniors were doing well — surprisingly well, Yuuri thought, watching Ilya catch Katya in a dramatic quad twist. Nathalie’s confidence had improved noticeably since the GPF as well, and Yuuri thought she’d do well at the Junior World Championships and the upcoming Junior Nationals. Dima, too, looked better than he had before, and Yuuri was surprised and a bit flattered to recognize a transition from his own old program had made it into Dima’s slowly upgrading free skate. He wondered if that was Victor’s influence.  
  
When the seniors came out, Yuuri focused mostly on Yuri, wondering how many of the mistakes that morning were due to real issues and how many had been encouraged by his conflict with Victor. Watching Yuri switch to a triple instead of a quad and still come down shaky, Yuuri frowned. It looked like it wasn’t all personality-conflict based. Yuri still had some real adjustment challenges with his new height, but it seemed like more than that.  
  
He was still thinking about Yuri’s performance that day when senior practice wrapped up. They left for Ostrava in less than a week, so there wasn’t really time to dig into any major changes. What would give him back the confidence he’d had earlier in the year, when he’d done well at the GPF qualifiers?  
  
Of course, the unspoken truth was that Yuri hadn’t done that well in the fall, either. He’d qualified for the final only because Otabek had withdrawn. His scores had been off of his own record all year. This wasn’t a short-term problem, but it still felt like they could do something to help Yuri in the next few weeks.  
  
Yuuri puzzled over this as he waited for Victor to emerge from the locker room. Other skaters — both Russian team skaters and amateurs — walked back and asked after his wrist. He said it was fine, but he’d started to doubt that was true. It had started to ache, though it wasn’t yet throbbing.  
  
“Order in?” Yuuri asked when Victor emerged.  
  
Victor shook his head. “As tempting as that sounds, Veronique confirmed for dinner tonight. Is that still all right?”  
  
“Oh, right,” Yuuri said, picking at the edge of his bandage wrap. “Of course. Yes.”  
  
“Thank you," Victor said, kissing the top of his head. “Do we need to pick anything up for your wrist anywhere? I have more bandages and ibuprofen at home.”  
  
“Then I’m all set.”  
  
On the way to dinner, they chatted more about the day. Victor asked for more details about his quad practice before the fall, and Yuuri reported the disappointing results. “Maybe the time off ice will be good, help you recalibrate,” Victor said.  
  
“Uh-huh.” Yuuri didn’t bring up his observations of Yuri, and neither did Victor. Instead, they talked about the juniors, mostly, and about Mila’s determination to have a triple Axel for next season.  
  
“It’s a miracle she’s not going for it this year,” Yuuri said. He’d watched her training for it most of the summer and fall with Yakov, after all, in fits and starts off ice and now on.  
  
“Yakov would not have allowed it.” Victor shrugged. “She has the strength for it, and she doesn’t mind falling. It’s silly to hold her back just because she doesn’t need the points to win, if she wants the challenge.”  
  
Yuuri glanced over. Victor was staring straight ahead at the road, one gloved hand perched on top of the wheel. He was a good but somewhat relaxed driver who tended to make his own way and rules when traffic allowed. That evening, though, his concentration was clearly elsewhere, as he had been driving peacefully behind the same slow-moving truck for a few blocks. “Are you going to allow it?” Yuuri asked.  
  
He watched Victor’s mouth raise into a small, knowing smile. “What do you think?”  
  
“Hm.” Yuuri glanced out of his own window, watching the river slip by. “What did you do, when Yakov told you no?”  
  
“Yakov still tells me no,” Victor said. “And I do what I’ve always done — consider his advice, of course, but…”  
  
“But then do what you want.”  
  
He shrugged one shoulder, still smiling.  
  
“I think Mila is like you,” Yuuri said.  
  
“But she’s not putting the Axel in this year.”  
  
Yuuri let himself smile, now, knowing Victor probably wouldn’t see it. “Sure,” he agreed. “Like I didn’t put in the flip.”  
  
They turned and Victor seemed to re-engage with his driving, picking up speed as they entered a broad boulevard. “Why wouldn’t she tell me, then?”  
  
“Does she think you’ll say no?”  
  
Victor didn’t answer. He pulled the car into their usual garage and his reserved space. The doorman held the elevator for them, and he and Victor engaged in their usual quick back-and-forth about a city league hockey team. When they entered the apartment, Makkachin leapt at them, and Yuuri hissed, having brought his hand up out of habit to pet her.  
  
“You’ll need to ice,” Victor said, gesturing him toward the kitchen. “I will take her out.”  
  
They had a neat stack of ice packs in the freezer for exactly this reason. Yuuri took one out and slid it into a fleece sleeve, something his mother had found him with cartoon, jewel-eyed cats on it. The sleeve kept the ice from freezing his skin but provided the right amount of chill when Yuuri lay it over his swollen wrist. Getting ready for dinner would be a pain.  
  
Luckily, now, he had Victor, and with the day’s skating work done, he was likely ready to be Yuuri’s doting husband again. When he came in from Makkachin’s walk, he urged Yuuri into the shower, then helped him dry off (unnecessary but not unwelcome) and dress in clean slacks and a fitted blue wool V-neck sweater. “Is this enough?” Yuuri asked, looking down at himself. It was certainly more dressed up than he would have been for a night at home, but he didn’t know where Veronique was meeting them for dinner.  
  
“Add your new black jacket," Victor suggested, and Yuuri did. The jacket had been a gift both from Victor and a sponsor: Victor had given the designer’s rep Yuuri’s name, and the jacket had arrived for his consideration a few days later. It was lovely, actually, a perfect fit that he could throw over a sweater like this to dress up. Victor said it would work equally well with jeans and a T-shirt, but Yuuri couldn’t quite get there. He wasn’t a jeans-and-suit-jacket kind of guy.  
  
Victor was, though. He had changed into black jeans that hugged his long legs and a black-and-white horizontal striped shirt with a high V-neckline. The asymmetrically cut, belted short black coat he threw over it looked like an accessory, not a nod to the weather. It felt like slightly thicker silk under Yuuri’s fingers.  
  
“It’s from the Saint Laurent winter line!” Victor objected, grinning, when Yuuri pointed out it didn’t seem very warm.  
  
“Winter where?” Yuuri asked.  
  
“Ah, California or France, I don’t know,” Victor said, and shrugged. “I miss Hedi.”  
  
“I’m sure she misses you, too,” Yuuri murmured, and Victor laughed.  
  
“I love you,” he said, kissing Yuuri’s temple in the way that let Yuuri know he’d missed something. “Do you want any help with your hair?”  
  


* * *

  
An hour later, their cab pulled up in front of a of a black-fronted building with a long, red awning. A stiff shouldered man in a gray uniform sprinted to Victor’s side. “Mr. Nikiforov,” he said, opening the door.  
  
“Hello, Pavel,” Victor greeted him in Russian. “Good to see you again.”  
  
Pavel also opened Yuuri’s door, and Yuuri stepped out and took Victor’s extended hand, keeping his injured wrist tucked against his midsection. He was suddenly grateful that he’d decided to take Victor’s cue and wear his slightly more fashionable but decidedly thinner long black trench coat. The awning had heat lamps running against the bitter St. Petersburg cold, and he would have felt underdressed in his usual winter garb.  
  
“Ms. Fontaine is at the bar,” the maitre de informed them as they stepped inside. “Michel can show you the way.”  
  
Victor nodded while Yuuri tried not to gape at the restaurant around them. The walls were covered in what could only be described as carpet. Not the lush underfoot kind, though: the tapestry kind, in heavy, colorful scenes. Every bench in sight was upholstered with thick, red velvet cushions through which winding flower patterns had been trimmed; every table had a single center candle, and the ceilings were so high above that even powerful lights might not have made much difference. The artful wall sconces cast a golden but almost foggy glow. This felt like a place one came not to be seen.  
  
The bar was dimly lit, as well, but eschewed the heavy touches of the dining room in favor of high, dark-wood booths and a room-length bar with racks and rack of bottles glowing behind it. If the dining room looked like it had been built with old world wealth for secret deal-making, the bar looked like something out of the same time but for brawlers.  
  
Veronique stood at a tall, rough wooden table near the edge of the bar, nursing a drink. She’d worn a pale green dress with a dramatic sweep of fur across the neck, and she’d pulled her hair up into a bun that reminded Yuuri sharply of the many ballet classes he had taken. She looked every inch the fashionable aristocrat he’d seen her play in countless fashion ads over the years. When she turned and saw them, though, her face lost its tight, chilly look, and she beamed, eyes lighting up. “Vitya! Yuuri! Wonderful.”  
  
Veronique kissed Victor’s cheeks, then turned and did the same for Yuuri. “I’m so glad you came,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it. How’s the wrist?”  
  
Yuuri blinked. “Ah — what? Fine,” he said. How did she know already?  
  
“Natalya,” she said, shrugging. She smelled like peaches and sandalwood and a bit of wine, all in perfect sweet measure. Yuuri drew back and stood close to Victor. “Word travels fast, darling. I hope you’ll clear up social media soon?”  
  
Victor cursed softly in Japanese, shaking his head. “I should have thought of that," he murmured.  
  
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Yuuri said, though he wasn’t. He’d have to put out some kind of statement soon, or at least reassure his family and friends.  
  
His train of thought was interrupted by the appearance of a waiter, which seemed incongruous to their surroundings. Yuuri thought this looked more like the kind of pace where you approached the bar. Veronique seemed unsurprised by the man’s appearance, and Yuuri wondered if she was the reason for the visit.  
  
Victor ordered himself what was probably an expensive glass of vodka, and Yuuri chose a glass of wine, conscious that he likely shouldn’t drink too much while in training (or while needing medication for his wrist). Veronique ordered herself a glass of the same wine Yuuri had chosen, and he felt strangely proud of his choice.  
  
“Cheers,” she said, when the waiter returned in record time, carrying their drinks and a small basket of dark bread.  
  
Yuuri raised his glass to meet hers, surprised that Victor took out his phone instead of joining them. “Hold it up — perfect.” He snapped a photo. “All taken care of,” he said, typing on his phone.  
  
“What is?”  
  
“Instagram,” he said. He showed Yuuri his screen, grinning. There was a picture of Yuuri holding a wine glass in his uninjured hand. Ignore the rumors — I assure you he’s perfectly fine. #Wine o’clock #I’ll drink to him #katsukiyuuri #happynewyear  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes, but he was glad Victor had thought to do it. Veronique nodded her approval, as well.  
  
Moments later, they were whisked away to their reserved table in the main hall. Around them, the conversations felt hushed and serious, but both Victor and Veronique swayed through the room as though hearing silent, boisterous music. Yuuri sat with Victor in a broad velvet bench seat, resting his injured wrist on the tabletop next to the gilt-inlaid wine glass.  
  
“I know it looks stuffy,” Victor said, quietly, “but the food is divine. I can order for you, if you’d like?”  
  
Yuuri agreed, grounded by the feel of Victor’s knee leaning against his.  
  
Dinner went well. Victor ordered him a chicken and mushroom dish that featured a brown gravy so thick and delicious Yuuri was afraid to ask what it contained. The meat was butter-tender, which was a particular relief since cutting it would have put strain on his wrist, and he couldn’t imagine asking Victor to cut his food. Instead, he was able to savor the dish and listen to the conversation.  
  
That the meal went nicely surprised Yuuri, to an extent. He had expected to be cut out of some of the discussion. Veronique and Victor were old friends; though they both spoke English fluently, he suspected it wasn’t their preferred shared language. It would be like Yuuri inviting Victor to dinner with Yuuko, in the days before they’d become familiar. He expected references to events and people he didn’t know. Instead, the conversation flowed easily and included him by matter of course. They talked about skating and travel, about Victor’s grand plan for their Hasetsu reception, about Veronique’s family in France and her work with the Moscow skating club. She had most recently provided choreography and costume advice for the world champion ice dancers and several of the junior Moscow women. The ice dancers were planning to move to St. Petersburg the next year to train at Yubileyney, which had precipitated Veronique’s relocation plan.  
  
They all turned down dessert with regret but accepted the waiter’s offer of strong coffee.  
  
“How did your consultation in Vancouver go?” Victor asked as he sipped from his tiny cup.  
  
Veronique fluttered one hand up and down. “I’m getting quite the reputation, I’m afraid, for cleaning up after others. You may remember I’ve never been much for cleaning.”  
  
Victor laughed. Yuuri tried to remember what the Vancouver consultation might have been. Several current skaters worked out of a rink there, including one of the women in the GPF and one of the ice dancing teams. He didn’t remember that she’d been the choreographer for any of them. “Who did you work with?”  
  
“Heather Xu,” she said.  
  
Yuuri recognized the name immediately; she’d had a memorable exhibition skate (and a memorably bright costume). “I thought she worked with Dan and Ginger?”  
  
Veronique nodded. Victor had leaned back, arms crossed, looking slightly smug. “Nica gets called in these days when choreography isn’t working well," he said, as Veronique rolled her eyes. “She’s become something of a fixer.”  
  
She shrugged one shoulder. “Thanks to that visit, though, I’ll get to build her free skate next year,” she said.  
  
“Can’t we tempt you to help out more locally?” Victor asked, leaning forward on one elbow.  
  
She smiled, her gaze pointed. “I won’t deny I wouldn’t mind working with you,” she said, “but I don’t think Yakov Feltsman’s students are going to call a girl from Moscow for help.”  
  
“Yakov’s not here right now,” Victor said, “and you’re hardly from Moscow just because you trained there.”  
  
She laughed. “You’re very progressive, but most of your rink mates have a longer memory.”  
  
Victor scoffed. “Most of my rink mates are children. Children who want to win.”  
  
Yuuri watched her raise a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Oh,” she said, “you have someone in mind. Well. Don’t keep me in suspense.” She glanced at Yuuri. “It’s neither Yuri," she said, “and you wouldn’t take my choreography if you were on fire, which I promise I don’t take personally. No. Natalya’s set for the year. Is it the funny little junior pair?”  
  
Yuuri looked between them, confused.  
  
“You know him,” Victor said, not sitting up. He drew out his phone. “Vadim, he was fourth at Nationals. Dark haired boy at Natalya’s party.” Victor slid his phone over, and Yuuri could see a small video of Dima performing his free skate. Veronique studied it, eyes narrowing, as Yuuri turned incredulously to Victor.  
  
“What are you doing?” he murmured.  
  
“Just asking a friend for friendly advice,” Victor said, sliding his hand on to Yuuri’s knee. “Don’t worry.”  
  
“Remember who you’re telling not to worry,” Yuuri said, and Victor smiled and sipped his drink.  
  
“How could I ever forget, darling?”  
  
Veronique pushed the phone back over. “Really, this is your new project? I mean, he is not bad, but he is not your style.”  
  
“Clearly,” Victor said, hand squeezing Yuuri’s leg.  
  
“No, ah — in that, it’s pretty close,” she said, grinning, and Yuuri felt himself blush, “if he were a decade older. As a skater, though, no, no. He has none of your presence. That is not a boy who will charm every room he walks into, unless he has a serious personality change.”  
  
Victor pocketed his phone. “He’s not a project, per se. He’s my student, now. They all are.”  
  
“Ah.” She leaned forward, resting her chin in a cup of both hands. “You are taking this seriously, aren’t you?”  
  
“Is there another option?”  
  
They held each others’ gazes for a moment, and then Veronique grinned. “Send me more tape. Who did his show?”  
  
“Beatriz Carlo.”  
  
“Hm. Not who I would choose for him, but I understand the impulse," she said. “Am I allowed into the rink?”  
  
Victor smirked. “Going to send any videos back to your Moscow crowd?”  
  
“I’m wounded,” she said, one graceful hand over her heart. “Yuuri, is he this cruel to you?”  
  
“Ask me after practice tomorrow,” Yuuri said.  
  
Victor shook his head. “No, there is no practice for you tomorrow.” His fingers tapped gently over Yuuri’s bandaged wrist, and Yuuri was surprised to realize he had forgotten. “A cruelty in and of itself.”  
  
“Ah, well, a lovely day at home to look forward to,” Veronique said, her smile slightly suggestive.  
  
“Sadly, very sadly, none of that, either,” Victor said. “I’ll have to be at the rink.”  
  
“Then I’ll go, too,” Yuuri said, and held up one hand to hold off Victor’s objection. “I’ll be good!”  
  
“Not too good, though, I hope,” Veronique murmured.  
  
Victor, in a voice Yuuri rarely heard from him anymore, practically purred, “Oh, I’m never bored, don’t worry.”  
  
It took him a while to realize why Victor had sounded so strange. By then, the coffee cups had been emptied, and they’d all made falsely sad noises about the evening already ending. Yuuri was exhausted and knew Victor was, too, even though perhaps he had really been able to close down bars in his youth and still show up at dawn for practice. Veronique had to join a party already in progress for the New Year’s celebration, though she professed to being glad for the excuse to arrive quite late.  
  
They stood to say their goodbyes in the foyer just past the maitre de’s stand. Veronique pulled on a blinding white coat and then turned to see them both off. “Send me more tape,” she said as she kissed Victor’s cheeks in parting.  
  
“We’ll set up a visit at the rink,” he promised.  
  
As she embraced Yuuri, he wasn’t sure what to say. “It was nice to see you,” he managed.  
  
“You’re wonderful,” she said in return, holding him briefly by the shoulders. “Next time, you’ll come to my place, won’t you? I’ll get settled and we’ll do this again. Sooner this time! So you’ll have to get Vitya to give you my number because it’s hopeless trying to schedule with him.”  
  
“OK, yes,” Yuuri said, nodding before he had even processed what she was saying. Veronique Fontaine wanted his number — and oh, he’d let that surprise show on his face, he knew, from the way Victor was grinning.  
  
It surprised Yuuri, but they said good-bye again at the curb before Veronique climbed into one car and they took the next. In the backseat, Yuuri watched Victor’s face fade from the bright smile of their goodbyes into something smaller, still pleased but more obviously tired. He realized with a slightly smug jolt why Victor’s voice had sounded so strange before: he’d been using his interview voice, the slightly insincere tone he reserved for public play-acting, on Veronique.  
  
When they arrived home, Makkachin was already asleep and showed no sign of wanting to change that. It was late enough that they could justify going to bed, but early enough that Victor sat on the couch instead of heading back to their room.  
  
Yuuri hung up his jacket, then settled beside him. “I love you,” he murmured, leaning close against him.  
  
“Hm, good,” Victor said, resting his cheek against Yuuri’s head. His jacket felt slick and cool under Yuuri’s skin. “You have survived dinner with the dreaded ex, and you still love me, eh?”  
  
“Always,” Yuuri said. “Why did the two of you break up, by the way?”  
  
Victor shrugged, gently. “We were never very serious. It was dating, not a relationship. We would get together, hook up, do something, take trips, get photographed, but… we always had our own separate spaces. I was 18 or 19 when we were together, barely an adult in some ways.”  
  
“A world champion, though.”  
  
“Mm. Not in dating women, perhaps.”  
  
Yuuri laughed. “She’s nice. Fun.”  
  
“Yes,” Victor said. “A good friend. Or good enough.” He ran one hand lightly down Yuuri’s arm. “How is your wrist?”  
  
“Feels tight,” Yuuri said, drawing his sleeve back. He peeled off the supporting bandage and winced, feeling like he could see the swelling resume. It ached when he tried to move it.  
  
“Ice agin, shall we?” Victor leaned forward, clearly intending to rise and fetch more ice from the kitchen.  
  
Yuuri caught him with his good hand. “Thank you,” he said. Victor raised an eyebrow. “For taking me to dinner.”  
  
“With your celebrity crush? Of course,” Victor said, smiling. He turned just enough to cup Yuuri’s face in one hand. “It worked out, since I, too, was able to have dinner with the celebrity I find most attractive in the world.”  
  
“Lucky celebrity,” Yuuri breathed against his lips.  
  
“Indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has one of my favorite sequences to imagine, which is very!young!Yuuri with Victor/Veronique cologne. Picture Mari's disdainful face! Of course she's the one who helped him buy it...
> 
> The Hedi referenced here is [Hedi Slimane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedi_Slimane); I picture Victor as devoted to his Saint Laurent work. Examples [here](http://https://www.thefashionisto.com/saint-laurent-mens-style-hedi-slimane/), including the jacket referenced above (right side of the three-picture set under men's wear).


	12. Sunday, 15 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holiday baths!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed my every-other-day deadline! So sorry. Here are two chapters in one day to make up for it. (The first is pretty short and maybe x10 in sweetness?)

Yuuri woke the next morning to silence. Victor was deeply asleep next to him, drooling slightly onto the expensive pillow cases covering their equally expensive pillows. His bed — their bed — was such a luxury item, though in a very Western, pillow-rich kind of way. Sometimes, Yuuri missed the simplicity of his futon back in Hasetsu.

He hadn’t missed it the night before, though, as they had stayed up long enough to celebrate Russian New Year in some style. (Victor had briefly treated him to a history lesson about New New Year and Old New Year once, through which Yuuri had nodded and decided to continue calling all of these celebrations, simply, _Russian New Year _)__. They’d had a bit of an awkward time of it, thanks to Yuuri’s swollen wrist, but a good time had still been had by all.

Now, Yuuri stood and walked to the kitchen for more pain killers and ice. He was mid-way through shaking out his pills when he realized what was strange about the morning so far: Victor was sleeping in.

Victor almost never slept in, and he certainly hadn’t done so since becoming the coach at the rink. In fact, Yuuri knew he hadn’t slept in because Yakov’s calls had woken him like a particularly persistent alarm, apparently since they’d left Spain.

That meant this morning, Victor had either ignored Yakov’s call (unlikely) or had been allowed to sleep in by the absence of a call. Yuuri wasn’t sure which to hope for, but the effect was the same. He closed the kitchen cabinet quietly, deciding he’d let Victor sleep as long as he needed.

That turned out to be another hour and a half. Victor stumbled into the kitchen at 8:30, rubbing his face with one hand. “Mm, thank goodness it’s a holiday," he said, dropping into the chair next to Yuuri’s at the table.

“Good morning.”

“Is it? Is there coffee that might prove that?”

Yuuri laughed, then stood to make some. When they both had food and drink before them, Victor sighed, looking contented. “I slept very well. Thank you.”

Yuuri grinned. “Always happy to help.”

“Mm.” Victor nibbled on his orange slices. “So — I thought, today, since it’s a holiday, let’s actually have a day off.” Yuuri raised an eyebrow. “You’re not allowed on the ice anyway, and I —“ He glanced at where his phone sat, silent, on the counter.

“You need a rest, too,” Yuuri said.

Victor nodded, to Yuuri’s surprise. He’d expected a bit more protest. “I had an idea.”

“Oh, no,” Yuuri said, but he smiled.

Victor’s idea was a ritzy European spa, so staunch in its continental attitude that it did not close for the Russian New Year at all. Yuuri blanched as they walked in the door: the entire interior was built from marble and inlaid mosaics, and the overhead chandelier dripped crystals. “Victor, what does this place cost?” he whispered.

“We’re not buying it, and it’s not finance day,” Victor whispered back, guiding him to the desk. “Hello, yes, we have reservations!”

It turned out Victor had booked them packages that included massages and a trip to the spa’s hot baths. They weren’t exactly the hot springs of the onsen, but they were the closest thing Yuuri had experienced since leaving home. He sank into the wide, salty pool and his eyes fluttered immediately closed. That way, he couldn’t see the garish aquamarine murals on the walls.

“Lovely,” Victor murmured, sinking down next to him. “Ahh, we should come here more often.”

“OK,” Yuuri agreed, not worried about the cost for the moment. His every muscle seemed to be actively relaxing. “Tell me again why we aren’t buying this place?”

“I know! We deserve it.” Victor’s sigh was so deep it made waves in the water. Yuuri let his foot tread gently against Victor’s, the most blatant affection he’d ever allowed himself in the open baths at Yu-Topia, and Victor smiled. “Perhaps as a retirement plan, eh?”

“Sounds nice.”

When they emerged from their baths and massages, Yuuri felt light-headed, hungry, slightly bruised, and oddly boneless. Victor rubbed a hand up and down his back as they waited for his car to be brought around. “How are you feeling, Yur’sha?”

He hummed and rested his head on Victor’s shoulder. “Good. Wonderful.”

“Good.” He felt Victor’s smile against his hair. “We’ll come back next month, then. Before or after you win at Four Continents?”

“Don’t jinx it, please.” They separated and climbed into Victor’s car. “What do you want for dinner? Can we also eat like it’s a holiday?”

“Well, you’ll be working twice as hard next week anyway,” Victor said. “Let’s call for something.”

They ended up ordering a strange mash-up of Chinese, Japanese, and Thai foods because there was a pan-Asian restaurant down the street that would deliver, quickly, for free. The food was not authentic to any country, but it was still good, somehow, filling and heavy on vegetables and tofu.

“Does it make you homesick at all?” Victor asked.

“Why?” Yuuri asked, around a mouthful of rice. He understood the question, but he knew the right answer. “I’m home right now.”

Victor’s smile was everything.


	13. Monday, 16 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little more tension.

Victor left for the rink as early as usual the next day, after taking Yakov’s phone call. Yuuri ignored the alarm Victor had set for him and allowed himself a little extra sleep. An hour after his usual wake-up time, he crawled out of bed to take more ibuprofen, ice his wrist, and otherwise get ready for the day.

Although he couldn’t go on the ice, he was still set to lead stroking practice just after lunch. In the meantime, most of his stretching routine could be accomplished without using the injured wrist, provided he didn’t fall, so Yuuri worked his way through that. He had only just finished when his phone chimed with a new message. Instead of typing back, he tapped the video icon, and a moment later the call connected.

“Sawasdee khrap!” Yuuri said, grateful when Phichit laughed on the other end. “Did I get it right this time?”

“Ah, close, close,” he said. “Go sharper on the end.”

“Hm. How are you?”

“Great! But I’m calling to ask about you.” Yuuri raised his eyebrow. “OK,” Phichit said, “on a scale of one to ten, with one being your baseline of constant worry and 10 being not breathing, how freaked out are you?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Three? It’s barely a sprain.”

“No, no,” Phichit said, “though let’s definitely get back to that in a minute.” He leaned in closer to the camera. “About your dinner this weekend.”

“What?” Yuuri was glad, suddenly, that Victor had already left. “I — what are you talking about?”

“Veronique Fontaine! You went to the place to see and be seen in St. Petersburg with Victor’s hot ex, and you lived to tell the tale. Which you should, by the way,” he said, still grinning. “Tell me the tale, Yuuri.”

"Oh. It was fine,” he said, shrugging. “She’s nice.”

“Yuuuuuri,” Phichit whined.

“How do you know about this, anyway?”

“How do you keep forgetting about the Internet?” He looked down, and a second later, Yuuri’s phone buzzed. Phichit had sent him six links to small gossip articles about their night out. Two appeared to have pictures from inside the restaurant; another ran a photo of Yuuri and Victor walking in together, hands clasped; the last had a picture of the three of them saying their goodbyes on the sidewalk.

“Oh,” Yuuri said, paging through the links.

“'Ohhhh,'” Phichit mocked. “Oh! Come on, she’s the face of Miss Dior this year.”

“I think I saw that,” Yuuri said. “She’s nice. I don’t know what else to tell you. We talked about skating, mostly. She’s going to be in town for a few months.” Phichit gave him the longest, blankest stare then, until Yuuri finally gave in and described everything they’d eaten and everything they’d worn.

When he had his fill of minute details, Phichit nodded like a diner satisfied by a big meal and leaned back slightly from the camera. “OK. So. Are you jealous?”

Yuuri thought of that night after they’d returned home and how completely he’d reminded Victor of exactly who his own favorite celebrity was and always would be. He nearly blushed. “Definitely not,” he said. “They were never serious, anyway.”

“That’s — strangely heartbreaking and kind of reassuring,” Phichit said. “I’m glad you’re not freaking out. And hey! The pictures are all really good.”

“Thanks?”

They wound down talking about smaller news (Yuuri’s wrist; Phichit’s new exhibition piece) and gossip, and Yuuri was smiling when he hung up. He took his good mood with him to the rink, where he ran into Yuri in the locker room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Yuri said.

Yuuri brushed off the sharp tone and stowed his bag in his usual locker. “I’m running stroking practice today. Happy New Year again, too.”

Yuri waved off his greeting. “What about your wrist?”

“I’ll stay off the ice.”

Yuri snorted. He pulled on his right leg warmer. “Great job making the news, by the way. Your boyfriend is a moron.”

“Husband,” Yuuri corrected. “What news? Oh, Phichit sent me the photos from New Year’s Eve.”

“It’s more than photos,” Yuri said. He stood, winding his hair into a short pony tail behind him as he walked away. “Get Mila to translate for you.”

Yuuri had time to kill before he’d have to get organized for stroking practice, and he had a feeling no one would let him into the dance studio, so he did as Yuri had suggested. Mila was in the lounge, reading her phone and listening to headphones. She perked up when Yuuri passed on Yuri’s suggestion.

“Let’s look!” she said, sitting up and leaning close to him so they could both see her phone.

Yuuri knew (and could read) most of the English-language skating forums. He avoided them for the most part, as the gossip there was biting and often cruel, even from well-meaning fans. Russia had an equally robust online following for skating. Yuuri had been surprised and mildly alarmed to find out that Victor and his rink mates all considered it mandatory reading.

“Ah, so, here we go,” Mila said, clicking into a forum thread. “Oh, you went to Nozh? How was it?”

“Good,” Yuuri said, and then, “fancy. Lots of velvet.”

Mila nodded, humming like this was expected and desired. “I’ve always wanted to go. Nice pictures, by the way. Very flattering side for you, not so good for Vitya. Lots of gossip — wow! Did you really have a threesome in the bar bathroom?”

Yuuri covered his face. “Is that really on there? Definitely not, by the way.”

“Why not? She’s gorgeous.”

“I’m very married and pretty gay, Mila,” Yuuri said, and she laughed.

“Fair enough! The comments are wild. OK, so — Oh, I see.”

Yuuri looked through his fingers at the page, where he could only understand the single camera-phone photo that had been taken of him and Victor as they’d walked in to the restaurant. Mila was right: the angle was flattering to Yuuri, letting light bounce just so off of his cheekbones. His jacket had been pulled perfectly to slim his waist and broaden his shoulders. Victor was squinting, turned at a strange angle that made his jacket look tangled. Beyond that photo, though, the rest was a Cyrillic flood. Was this what Victor saw when he looked at Japanese writing?

“What is it?”

She frowned. “Speculation that Victor’s trying to recruit Veronique to work here, mostly. Or that he’s considering a move to Moscow, ha.”

“Ha,” Yuuri said. Of course that wasn’t true. “Is that all?”

“It’s enough," Mila said. “Veronique isn’t really associated with the Moscow club professionally any more, but she’s aligned with them. It would be big news if she suddenly had a role here.”

This made little sense to Yuuri. Skating clubs in Japan varied from totally informal — like his association with Ice Castle Hasetsu, built out of loyalty and convenience — to marginally more formal, with a few juniors working under the same coach in Tokyo. It didn’t engender such resentful competition between the clubs themselves, though.

Mila set her phone down, the screen still showing the forum. “There’s only so much Federation money to go around, you know. The Moscow club has been upset for years that our club gets the most money, gets the most people named to the big teams. Yakov’s been able to fend them off because we also produce the most champions. It’s something of a, ah, there’s an English term for it. A throw?”

“A catch?”

She nodded. “We keep producing the most champions, so we get the most money, so we can recruit people because we have all of this money, these facilities.” She sighed and looked down at her phone. “Yakov’s friends with half of the FFKK board. I think Lilia was on the board for a while. He’s been on the Coaches’ Council forever and he was the official coach for the Olympics the last three times. So that’s made it easier to get the money and the right decisions made. But…”

“But Yakov’s not here,” Yuuri said, slowly, “and they don’t really like Vitya.”

“No,” she agreed. “It’s why Bogdan and Sima have been in hiding the last few weeks. If Yakov never comes back, FFKK could make it pretty tricky for Vitya. I doubt they’d ever let him join the Coaches’ Council or head up the St. Petersburg oblast. They might try to influence some of his stars to relocate — Yuri, for example.”

“Or you,” Yuuri said, and Mila grinned.

“I like being a star!” she said. “Yes, like me.”

“Have they already…?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my novice training partner suddenly wanted to get back in touch last week. She’s skating in Moscow these days. But I’d never leave Piter.” She waved this away with such certainty that Yuuri felt assured. “Anyway, when he’s seen out with Veronique, people talk. They think maybe he’s making an exit plan, or maybe he’s making a takeover plan. Either way —“

“It was just dinner!” Yuuri said, maybe a little too loudly.

Mila laughed. “Probably so!” she said. “But it’s how it looks. Yuri’s right. Tell Vitya he should be a little more careful. Actually, I’ll tell him, since aren’t you supposed to be laid up with your wrist?”

“It’s really not that bad,” Yuuri said. “I get re-evaluated tomorrow.”

“Good luck.”

He thanked her and said he’d see her at stroking practice before leaving. In the hall, before he could catch his breath, he was caught in a clump of junior skaters.

“How bad is it?” Katya asked.

Yuuri drew the sleeve back on his jacket, slowly, showing them his bandaged wrist. “Minor,” he said. “A few days off to be cautious. Nothing to worry about. I’ll just be on the sideline today, is all.”

“Not skating,” Dima said, and Yuuri agreed.

“Not today, no. Where are you all headed?”

“Class,” Katya said with a sigh. “We have our exam coming up for history this week. Terrible!”

“Worse if we’re late,” Nathalie said, grabbing her by the arm. “See you soon, Yuuri!”

Yuuri watched them go, then glanced at his phone. He saw a few missed messages and decided to reply to one in person.

Victor was working in Yakov’s office that morning. He smiled when Yuuri walked through the door. “I’m just about to head out to work with Yurio,” he said. “Want to join in?”

While Yuuri thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the two of them to have supervision, he had to decline. “Actually, can I borrow this office? I’m supposed to Skype with Yeva.”

“Oh! Of course!” Victor looked delighted, which was a strange but encouraging reaction. “That’s a good idea. She always wants to talk after injuries. How are you doing, by the way?”

“Fine,” Yuuri said. He watched Victor slide on his heavier jacket, getting ready to go up to the ice. His tone was bright, but he was moving a little slow, tired and maybe not looking forward to fighting Yuri for the next hour. This wasn’t the moment to get into the FFKK business. Instead, he said, “Mila says the Internet thinks you and I and Veronique had a threesome at the restaurant.”

“Reeeeally?” Victor said, blinking, then laughing. “At the restaurant? What a compliment to our perceived flexibility!”

Yuuri laughed, too. “You’re wonderful.”

Victor’s grin now was more genuine. “I’m so glad you think so.” He kissed Yuuri at the doorway, just a quick parting press of lips. “You’ll be up in time for stroking practice?”

“Yes. Thirty minutes here and then I’ll come up.”

“Take your time,” Victor said. He closed the door behind him, leaving Yuuri in Yakov’s windowless little office.

He’d never quite heard the full story of why Yakov worked down here. The building had many other office spaces, up on the higher floors. Some were quite modern and beautiful, from what he’d heard. None of those words described Yakov’s office, which had concrete block walls and bare concrete floors. His desk was broad, simple wood, though the chair behind it was wide and surprisingly high-quality mahogany-toned leather. A gift, probably, Yuuri decided, and chose to sit in the seat across from Yakov’s chair instead of in it.

He pulled out his phone and set up its tiny stand, then messaged Yeva over Skype to let her know he was available. This was the hardest part, somehow: actually initiating the meeting. So he did it quickly, not giving himself a chance to back out, to decide to go for a walk, to get a fresh coffee, to forget to ever call her back.

“Hello, Yuuri.”

Yeva Alexeyevna Verenich was a sports psychologist who had worked with many of the Russian team before. Yakov trusted her and encouraged his skaters to work with her, which meant Victor trusted her. It had made it easier for Yuuri to trust her, too, and their relationship so far had been surprisingly fruitful. “Good morning,” he said, as her face came into view. She had a round, pleasant face and bobbed white hair, with glasses perpetually pushed to hold it back. Today, he could see a blank blue wall behind her. “Ah, are you in Moscow?”

“Helsinki, finally,” she said. Though she did live in Russia for part of the year, Yeva’s permanent home was in Finland, where her husband had some kind of important position in a ministry. She’d never exactly said, but Yuuri had picked up a little information from Victor. “And you’re all settled back in St. Petersburg, clearly!”

They chatted for just a moment or two idly, warm up chat that helped put Yuuri at ease: the weather, his travel schedule, a quick update on Makkachin’s health. He’d last spoken to her from Japan, just before Nationals and after his elopement, so they also talked briefly about his win and time since then.

“So, I also have a new medical report,” she said. “How is your wrist?”

“A mild sprain.” Yuuri knew she would have already seen that, if the reports had been sent to her, but he didn’t know what else to say. “Not very serious.”

“Good,” she said. “How do you feel about it?”

These questions were hard for him. For so long, he’d been trying to train himself not to admit what he really felt when he really felt it. Saying out loud that he was scared, or nervous, or feeling like an imposter — that only made it worse, because then he still felt that way and people looked at him like the weakling he’d always thought he was. Yeva had been encouraging him to speak honestly. “This will sound strange, but I haven’t really worried about it.”

“Oh?”

“I — there are other things going on.”

She leaned in, slightly, her eyes narrowing on screen. “What kinds of things?”

He started by telling her about the training, how he’d been able to help Victor since they’d come back.

“Do you enjoy that?”

Yuuri nodded. “At the Finals, it was kind of a distraction from all of the other bad stuff happening. Now — it’s something I can do, to help everyone, to…” He paused, then said what he was thinking to save them both the time of Yeva trying to coax it out. “To fit in.”

“And how has that felt?”

“Good,” he said. “I like it. Not just the fitting in — the work is good. I like it.”

“What do you like about coaching?”

“I’m not really coaching,” Yuuri said. “Victor is the coach. He’s very good at it, you know.”

She nodded, pausing as she sometimes did to take notes. “What was it like when he was coaching you, back in Japan? Similar?”

Yuuri nearly laughed. “No, not at all.” He told her a bit about their Hasetsu adventures, glossing over a few parts but hitting the highlights. “Once,” he said, “he sent Yuri and I to these waterfalls, to stand underneath them.”

Yeva leaned forward, listening as though she was amused. “What for?”

“I think it was to help us find our inspiration.” Yuuri shook his head, suddenly caught in the memory. Victor’s methods in Hasetsu had been so different from what they were now. They’d been much, well, weirder, but also much more about motivation and inspiration, less about the nuts-and-bolts of skating. After Yuri had left, they’d transitioned more toward the normal kind of practice Yuuri was used to, though there had always been the chance of some new Victor scheme popping up.

Those schemes didn’t exist in St. Petersburg, Yuuri realized.

After he’d finished talking to Yeva, who had suggested they speak again after the team returned from Ostrava, Yuuri sat for a few moments in Victor’s quiet office, thinking. Victor really was a different kind of coach than he had been in Japan. There, away from his teammates, he’d been more unpredictable. They’d gone to the waterfalls and a local temple; they’d spent a spontaneous day at the beach, which Victor counted as strength and endurance training; he’d made Yuuri balance bowls on his head one time and skate around pieces of fragile glass another. All of these had been in the service of his skating.

Now, Victor took few chances with his skaters. They did their assigned practices and routines each day, nothing more or less. Other than the party at New Year’s and the party at Mila’s, every interaction Yuuri had seen between Victor and the juniors, in particular, had been completely professional.

He left Victor’s office feeling stunned. Victor was many things, but completely professional was not one of them. He could be, certainly; he’d proven this at the GPF that year, taking on the Russian team and Yakov’s illness smoothly and competently. But Victor liked surprises. He reveled in creativity. It’s what made him a fantastic performer and an exceptional choreographer, and for Yuuri, it had made him a perfect fit as a coach.

As he entered the West Rink, he could hear Victor’s voice, raised in sharp, biting Russian. Yuri’s free skate music played in the background. Yuuri walked to the boards, hands in the pockets of his jacket, surprised at the chill in the room.

Yuri, somehow, had more solo ice time with his coach than anyone else at the rink. This was some part of his contract with Yakov, apparently, and Victor was doing his best to honor the commitment. However, Yuuri couldn’t really think of something that would be worse for either of them. If he’d wanted to make sure his two top rivals were in bad mental condition, making them work closely together for six or seven hours a week was probably the best way to do it.

Yuri growled something — probably a curse word — and then flung himself into a long cross-ice glide, gaining speed into a furious triple Axel. He didn’t fall, but it was badly under-rotated. Yuuri winced when Victor snapped something before Yuri had even slowed from his landing.

When Yuri stopped, he was facing Yuuri. As he focused on him, Yuuri thought he saw the briefest flash of relief before his face was schooled again into sullen disdain. “Victor, you can take that suggestion and —“

“Hey! Ah, hello!” Yuuri called. “Have you two had lunch yet? It’s nearly time to clean the ice.”

Victor tilted his head, clearly puzzled. “Is it, already?”

“Yes,” Yuuri confirmed. “And I believe I owe Yuri a juice box today for that bet on our game last week.”

Yuri actually perked up. “And a yogurt.”

“Right,” Yuuri agreed, though he didn’t think that had been part of the deal. “All right, I’ll meet you there in fifteen?”

“Make it ten,” Yuri said, gliding to the exit.

“Fifteen,” Victor said firmly. “Stretch out before you leave the locker room, all right?”

“Whatever,” Yuri said, putting on his blade guards and heading for the lockers.

On the ice, Victor skated a full lap of the rink as his own cool down. He’d worn his usual practice uniform that day, black pants and a loose gray V-neck T-shirt, somehow casual and elegant all at once. Yuuri rested his hands on the down-filled vest Victor often wore to stay warm off the ice, which had been flung (as usual) over the boards. Victor stretched his arms out, rolling his shoulders, and Yuuri allowed himself a moment just to admire him. Ah, his husband was beautiful.

He stopped in front of Yuuri. “Hello. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“Hard practice?” Yuuri asked, as Victor put both hands on either side of him.

“Mm.” Victor’s head tilted, and Yuuri stood on his tiptoes to kiss him. “Can’t remember. It was probably fine.” He winked.

“I’ll buy you a juice box, too,” Yuuri offered, “if you get off the ice right now.”

“How could I resist?”

Victor climbed off the ice, and Yuuri handed over his hard guards and his vest. Up close, he smelled lightly of sweat, which meant he’d been doing example runs for Yuri. They made their way to the nearest benches, where Victor just stared down at his feet for a moment. Yuuri said, “Should I bring you some lunch up here?”

It took a moment, but Victor nodded. Yuuri had also had days like this, where he knew removing and then replacing his skates would hurt. Victor was on the ice more than anyone right now, and he liked to teach by example. His feet probably ached. Yuuri tried not to worry that it was anything more than that. “Thank you.”

He fetched a couple of small sandwiches and soups, paid for those and Yuri’s treats, and then returned to have a picnic lunch with Victor on the bench next to the rink. They ate quietly. Yuuri had a hundred things he wanted to ask, but nothing that he could figure out how to say. None of it was probably appropriate for the rink. He settled, instead, for briefly leaning his shoulder against Victor’s. Victor nodded and pressed an absent-minded kiss into Yuuri’s hair. That was enough.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, after Victor had ended up taking off his skates after all, and he’d excused himself back to Yakov’s office, the other skaters were ready for stroking practice.

“So, what are we up to today?” Mila asked brightly.

Running them all through the exercises was actually easier from the sidelines. It surprised Yuuri. He was used to being in the thick of the action, demonstrating moves just as Victor had always done for him. However, because he wasn’t trying to work with them, he could actually watch everyone. He noticed the way Katya leaned too much on the inside edge in one exercise, saw the wobbles in Nathalie’s pattern in another. He could see Dima’s strength in a long clear glide and Ilya’s impatience when he nearly went down face-first from a snagged toe pick doing a lazy rocker turn.

It was a good practice.

Afterwards, while the other skaters scattered toward classes or training, Yuuri walked to Yakov’s old office and found Victor squinting at his laptop. “What are you working on?”

“Paperwork for junior national championships,” Victor said.

“I thought Bogdan usually…” Yuuri started, then frowned.

Victor looked up, then shook his head gently. “He’s Yakov’s assistant, not my assistant. I don’t blame him. I was pretty terrible to him as a teenager.”

“That’s not why —“

“No,” Victor agreed. “But it doesn’t really matter.”

“Do you want help with the forms? I don’t mind!” he said, quickly, when Victor looked ready to object. “I used to always register myself in juniors. Minako’s not precisely trustworthy with paperwork.”

“No?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “When I was thirteen, she went on this weird retreat with a few friends from her dancing days, and she came back with this brutal honesty policy. You know how they have us fill out outside hobbies and things on the registration forms? She wanted to put down, ‘Masturbating to skating magazines.’ I think she would have done it, too, if I hadn’t caught the paperwork before it went in.”

Victor laughed. “Are you sure that wasn’t Mari?”

“She would never bring shame on the family like that,” Yuuri said, trying to sound grave. “Listen, bring these home. I can fill them out tonight for you.”

“You really don’t mind?”

“You can rub my feet while I do it.”

“That’s not a bad deal,” Victor said. “OK, I am convinced.” He snapped the lid closed on his computer. “First, though. Practice.”

* * *

Their practice went fine that day. Yuuri watched from the sidelines, feeling his wrist ache and itch in equal measures. He wanted to be out there with his friends, but he couldn’t risk a second fall. Four Continents was only three weeks away, after all. (If it had been closer, he would have gone against the medic’s advice). Besides, it let him observe Victor’s coaching again, to get a sense for what Yuri and Mila had been trying to tell him. From what he saw, things still hadn’t exactly improved, but at least they weren’t any worse. Victor still intimidated the junior skaters, and he still took the wrong tact with Yuri at nearly every turn. What Yuuri noticed that day that he hadn’t before was that Victor didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, either.

He brought this up as they walked out of the arena together. Victor shrugged. “You know it’s not always fun. Fun is for amateurs, yes?” Yuuri nodded. Of course, that was true. While some natural talent certainly put the elite skaters into their own group, what really separated professional and amateur athletes was that the pros showed up and stayed even when they didn’t want to, even when none of it was fun anymore. “Did you have fun in Hasetsu?”

Victor raised an eyebrow. “Which time?”

“When you first showed up.”

“Oh. Of course.” He paused to unlock the car.

Yuuri waited until they were both seated before asking another question. “With coaching me? You had fun?”

“You’re a lovely student,” Victor said, “and it would be hard to separate the coaching relationship from the rest of it, particularly in those early days.” He turned on the car. “This is you, saying I should be having more fun?”

“I’m not saying you should be doing anything,” Yuuri said. “But — you’re just very serious on the ice, these days.”

“Now, come on, you can’t fault me for becoming a model coach now!” Victor’s tone was teasing, but underneath, Yuuri caught some hint of another emotion — annoyance, maybe, or frustration.

“I’m not,” Yuuri insisted. ‘I’m saying, as your, ah, your husband, I want you to be happy, and you look miserable out there.”

“Do I look truly miserable,” he asked, “or do I look like Yakov?”

“Is there a difference?” Yuuri closed his eyes, picturing Yakov back at practice. His face was perpetually red, his eyes always bulging, his mouth usually open to spew forth some string of curses. He had never been a particularly happy man. Yuuri loathed the idea of Victor becoming more like him, particularly in that respect.

“Hm, perhaps not,” Victor granted. He pulled into traffic, and Yuuri fell silent, letting him concentrate on the drive. A light snow had fallen the night before, and with the light already dimming, the pedestrians on the sidewalk seemed to be moving in slow motion as they picked their way across slick sidewalks. Driving was a luxury to which he’d already grown accustomed. If — when — if Victor returned to being just a skater, not the head coach, Yuuri thought he might miss this privilege, particularly if Victor decided they needed to run to and from the rink again.

“It’s not Yakov’s fault,” Victor said, after the silence had stretched so long that Yuuri had drifted into new thoughts.

“Hm?”

“It’s just the Russian way.”

Yuuri thought about this for a moment. “The Russian way is being mean and miserable?”

Victor laughed, quick, mirthless. “That is not a bad summary, actually.”

“That sounds pretty dumb.”

“It gets results, though,” Victor said.

Yuuri sighed. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “But aren’t some of those results, I mean, sometimes, don’t people quit?”

“Then they don’t belong here anyway,” Victor said, so swiftly it was like a programmed response.

Yuuri let the silence hang for a moment, struggling with how to respond. Inherent under that idea was another idea about mentally weak skaters that Yuuri really didn’t want to examine. He looked out the window, opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and repeated this about four times. When they arrived home, he was surprised that he had to clear his throat in order to have a steady voice to ask about dinner.

“Anything," Victor said. His hands rested on the steering wheel, though he hadn’t moved to get out of the parked car. Yuuri nodded, pulling out his phone to look at likely delivery candidates.

Victor’s hand fell gently on his shoulder. “I hurt your feelings with that, didn’t I?”

Yuuri shrugged. The corners of his eyes felt tight. “I don’t think you meant to.”

“No,” Victor agreed, “but that doesn’t really matter.” The backs of his fingers brushed Yuuri’s cheek. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Victor took the first shower while Yuuri ordered dinner, and then they traded places. By the time Yuuri came back out, dressed in clean clothes and with still-wet hair, Victor was setting plates on the coffee table in the living room. “I thought out here," he said.

Yuuri nodded and folded himself down in front of the coffee table, facing the couch. It was comfortable for him, more like eating at home than the formality of Victor’s kitchen table or bar. They’d ordered mixed grill from an American place that night, lots of under-spiced chicken and vegetables that they both attacked with their favorite seasonings before eating.

Victor stabbed a bell pepper with his fork and said, “Our system is mean.”

“No kidding,” Yuuri murmured.

“No, I mean, skating in general. It’s a particularly cruel branch of sports anyway. It demands certain aesthetics, certain features. It’s basically a sport for the wealthy in most countries anyway. The judging is, at best, 50 percent subjective.”

Yuuri pushed his chicken around, looking for a few more mushrooms. “Yes, I know all of this.”

“And we’re certainly worse about it here," Victor said. “But that’s — it’s, we talk about it like it’s preparation. If you can take the harsh truth from your coach, then you can handle the rest of it, the snarking comments about weight gain or lack of style, the forums full of over-obsessed fans, any of that.”

A mouthful of mushroom gave Yuuri an excuse to simply nod, not respond. Victor went on. “Perhaps it’s not the best system, but it’s what they know. It’s what I know.”

Yuuri took a sip of tea. “I don’t think that’s entirely true," he said. “You’re not that way with me. Or — “ he added, memories of their first weeks in Hasetsu surfacing, “well, not since we’ve really known each other.”

Victor smirked. “We’ve never had a standard coach-pupil relationship, though.”

“Never?” Yuuri said, and then remembered that Victor had officially declared himself Yuuri’s coach while standing naked in his parents’ hot springs. Yuuri had drunkenly invited Victor to be his coach, partially as a come on. “OK, that’s probably true. But even when Yurio joined us in Japan —“

“That wasn’t coaching, though,” Victor said. “That was choreographing. There’s room to be kinder, and to be more creative, in choreography. I needed you both to understand the music, the emotion. Coaching is — not about emotion.”

“Are you — “ Yuuri set down his chopsticks. “Vitka, are you joking? There’s — half of it, at least, is emotion.”

Victor sighed. “A bond between coach and skater is important, I’ll grant you, but —“

“No, no,” Yuuri said, then, “I mean, yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Coaching is — there’s inspiration involved. Motivation. All of these emotional processes.”

Makkachin ambled in then, poking Yuuri in the shoulder with her soft nose. He guarded his chicken carefully; it was the most delicious part. “Shoo, Makka, your fathers are having a discussion,” Victor said. She plopped at his feet, offering her belly for a rub, and he laughed.

Yuuri said, quietly, “What do you think coaching is about, then?”

“Often, the not-fun parts,” Victor said, one hand rubbing Makkachin. “The technical pieces. The rules. And then, yes, the other pieces, but most skaters, at least here… motivation isn’t their problem.”

“No?”

“The system here pays well,” Victor said, simply, as though it was just an easy and accepted fact. “To be taken in to the Champion team, Yakov’s team — there are benefits. To the skater, to their family. Even now, it’s true.”

Yuuri picked up his chopsticks again, processing this. “They pay for their training.”

Victor waved a hand, so-so. “They do, but depending on their package at the Champions school, maybe the government pays most of it for them, plus room and board. And they also get marketing training. They get networking opportunities. Ice shows. Opportunities to run clinics or be paid guest stars. I’d be surprised to learn that anyone in Yakov’s elite group actually makes less than double what they pay to be here, particularly once they’re in senior competitions.”

That was… interesting, Yuuri thought. It explained Victor’s substantial investment account, at least, though it didn’t explain why Dima always seemed worried about where his next meal might come from. “So — there are pros and cons, you’re saying, to how things work here.”

Makkachin huffed as Victor drew his hand back. “For me, as a skater, it was mostly pros.”

“And as a coach?”

He shrugged. “They all have the potential for great careers.”

They left the discussion there for the night, segueing into the paperwork that Yuuri had promised to do earlier. After the promised foot rub, Victor sat nearby, reviewing more tape of others, clucking his tongue at particularly good or bad moves. It wasn’t a bad ending to the evening, but Yuuri still fell asleep feeling slightly unsettled, like some new argument was on the tip of his tongue. Maybe it would come to him in the morning.


	14. Tuesday, 17 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back on the ice.

By morning, the anxious feeling had mostly cleared. He went to the trainers first thing the next day and was cleared to take the ice, as long as he was cautious with his wrist. It would mean wearing a wrap and probably doing less well articulated hand movements for a few days, but Yuuri could manage it. Victor, who had tagged along to the medics’ offices, agreed that it would be OK.

That morning the West Rink was clear and empty. Victor insisted on watching and recording his informal practice that day, even though everyone else probably needed his attention more critically with Euros barely a week away. It felt a bit like old times: an empty rink, a too-early morning, and Victor standing thoughtfully at the edge of the ice and in the center of Yuuri’s attention.

Yuuri felt great that morning. His quads rolled out gracefully. His edges were sharp. It was as though the sprain had never happened, even though he was wearing the compression wrap. 

“Perhaps you should take two days off more often,” Victor mused, and Yuuri rolled his eyes. He’d drawn up even with Victor at the side, panting slightly but nowhere near tired yet. “Show me the combo, then.”

He set up for it as he would in his short program, concentrating. The quad Lutz went beautifully, and he lifted into the quad toe with the right speed and height — but the wrong angle. He didn’t fall, but he didn’t get the full rotations, either, finishing the turn on the ice.

“Hm,” Victor said. He crossed his arms, his puffy vest making a swish-swish noise as he moved. “They might count it as an over-rotated triple at that point.”

“It’s close, though,” Yuuri said. He’d honestly expected Victor to be a little more excited about this.

“Maybe.” Victor leaned back against the boards. “We have time. Can you run the whole program?”

So Yuuri did, and this time, it went well: very well, in fact. He wobbled on the landing of the second jump, but it was there, a second quad, maybe a little under-rotated but there. The momentum of landing it propelled him through the rest of the program, feeling like he was soaring. When he finished, panting, muscles tingling, he looked over at Victor and beamed.

Victor was grinning. “It’s wonderful,” he said, hands clapping together.

“You think so?” Yuuri asked, skating over. He stopped just in front of Victor. 

“Wonderful,” Victor repeated, handing over Yuuri’s glasses. “Remember the exercises we ran this summer for the height? You’ll need to start that again, and the landing is getting close to an under-rotation, but Yuuri — “ He shook his head, smile broad and true. “You’re going to land the first quad-quad combination in competition!”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Yuuri said, but Victor cut him off. 

“Of course you’ll land it.” Victor rested a hand on his waist. “You’re determined to keep me off the podium at World’s, hm?”

Yuuri laughed. “Did you need some motivation to improve?”

Victor kissed him, one cool hand on Yuuri’s chilled cheek. “You continue to inspire, my Yurasha.”

“A-hem.” Yuuri glanced over, steadying himself with a hand on Victor’s arm. Yuri stood at the rink entrance, hands on hips, glaring. “Can’t you losers suck face somewhere else? Like anywhere else?”

“Good morning, Yurio,” Yuuri said, not moving away from Victor.

“Yura,” Victor said, sing-song, “we’re getting a jump clinic soon. Do you know why?”

“No. Why? No. Why would I know why?” Yuri said, trying to apparently look completely innocent while also glaring daggers at Yuuri. His face had already turned as red as his tracksuit. 

“Because Yuuri here has finally surpassed my own skill! He’s working on a jump I can’t teach him.”

Now Yuri’s eyes narrowed. “The quad Axel? It’s impossible, you know.”

“I don’t know that,” Yuuri said, before Victor could correct him. “What are you doing here so early?”

“Uh, Euros is in a week, asshole.” He ran both hands through his hair, then yanked it brutally into a short ponytail. “Get off the ice if you’re not doing something productive.”

Victor hummed. “I can work with you in fifteen minutes.”

“Or you could go away,” Yuri said, and took off across the ice.

Yuuri didn’t comment on that one. They all needed some alone time, now and then. Victor just shrugged and started for the benches, and Yuuri followed. 

As Yuuri sat, Victor said, “Quad Axel? Anything you’re not telling me?”

“I’m not working on that,” Yuuri promised. “I’d need supervision, the jump harness, and maybe a brain scan. But you’re not the only one who benefits from a little motivation every now and then, you know.”

Victor snickered. “Coach Yuuri strikes again,” he said, before kissing Yuuri’s temple. “Do you want to tell the others you’re training on the quad combo?”

Yuuri shrugged. “Dima’s already seen me practicing it. It’s fine. Not like it will be a secret after Four Continents, anyway.”

Now he watched Victor sit up, saw his eyebrow raise. “You think you’ll be ready to debut it in Korea?”

“Why not?” Yuuri said. “I put in the quad flip when I was under 50 percent success in practice.”

“That was — it was the only way you could place, though,” Victor said.

Yuuri smiled at him. “Not to mention the sentimental part.”

“But now you have won both the medals and me," Victor said, placing the emphasis on himself in a way that made Yuuri’s grin grow. “There’s no need to take such risks. You already have a program that outscores your nearest competitors at 4C’s.”

“Unless they have some tricks up their sleeves,” Yuuri said.

Victor shook his head. “It’s not a risk worth taking.” 

“What?” Yuuri was shocked. “Victor, you love surprises like this.”

“No, I love you, and you’re just back from an injury.” He stood on his skates, towering over Yuuri, eyes cast toward the ice. Yuri was spinning in frantic circles, extending and then retracting to gain speed. “You are the reigning world champion. That competition should be your goal, not this one.”

Yuuri took a deep breath in, and then let one out slowly. “I’ll think about it,” he promised. 

Victor nodded, clearly believing that meant the discussion was settled. And Yuuri could acknowledge there was some logic to what Victor was saying. World’s was the important competition on his schedule, not 4C’s and certainly not the Asian Winter Games, when it came to actual international scoring. Unless he bombed the rest of his season (not impossible, his worst fears reminded him), he was likely to come back next year as a top seed for the ISU series and, after that, the Olympics. It was probably foolish to try an unpolished debut of the quad-quad combo unless he really needed the points. Even adding it to his declared program would be risking deductions if he didn’t follow through.

But he wanted to try. As Yuuri progressed through his morning routine at the fitness center, he kept coming back to this. He’d never really been a skater who held back on the ice. The very moment he learned a jump, he worked it into a program. This was mostly his under-dog mentality, after years of needing every advantage to even draw near the podium, and it might have been why Celestino had been so reluctant to let him learn more quads. Also, if he was being honest, he did want to challenge Victor for the podium. He wanted everyone to see what their collaboration still meant for Yuuri, how well he’d done in Russia as Victor’s student. 

And, in the tiniest corner of his brain or heart, Yuuri had a small, illogical, but also unselfish reason for wanting to debut the jump soon. If Victor was still planning to retire this year, he would doubtlessly announce it at Worlds. That should be the story of the day, no matter which of them took the gold. Yuuri didn’t want to ratify this combo that day because he wanted the spotlight, that one last time, to be Victor’s alone.


	15. Wednesday, 18 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone's looking for a new coach.

The next day brought another successful practice of the quad combo, alongside a number of falls, and one new enormous surprise. Yuuri was walking down the hallway between the rinks, skate bag over his shoulder and sweat dripping down his neck, when Katya and Ilya practically pounced on him. Yuuri stumbled back, startled, and realized they’d been sitting in wait for him. Both still wore their jackets and book bags, as though they’d run in directly from school. “Hi,” he said. “Did you have a nice holiday?”  
  
“Yes, great,” Katya said, beaming at him, looking strangely expectant.   
  
Yuuri checked his phone’s clock. “Stroking practice is later today, right?”  
  
“Yes,” they both said, perfectly in unison. “But we wanted to talk to you before then. Do you have a few minutes?” Katya asked.  
  
Yuuri nodded, slowly. He didn’t have anything scheduled at the moment, though he’d been considering going to the club masseuse for quick work on his arm and shoulder. That could probably wait until evening, though, while he was waiting for Victor to finish. Besides, the way Katya and Ilya were staring at one another with nervous sideways glances made him decide this was important. “What’s going on? Are you both OK?”  
  
“Fine,” Katya said, and Ilya huffed.  
  
“She is not fine,” he said, and Yuuri frowned. Katya looked up and down the hall, shaking her head. “Let us talk in the lounge.”  
  
At this time of day, the skaters’ lounge was usually empty. The cafe space next door might have someone rush in and out between sessions to grab a drink, but few people really used the lounge. They chose seats at the round table in the corner, and Yuuri stashed his bag under his chair. Both of the others perched on the edge of the bench seat, their coats making whisk-whisk noises as they moved. “So what’s going on?”  
  
“Practice has been bad,” Katya said.  
  
“Oh?” He wracked his brain, trying to remember what might be bringing this on. They’d looked fine in the last few practices to Yuuri. Victor had been pushing them to consider small details in their performance, a sure sign that he had full confidence in their technical skill. “How do you mean?”  
  
They stared at each other for a moment, titling their heads and wagging their eyebrows in a way that made Yuuri wonder if he was needed for this conversation at all. Finally, Ilya turned to him and said, “Victor is — not a nice fit for us.”  
  
“He’s never worked with pairs.”  
  
Katya shook her head. “It’s not that. Or, I’m sure that’s part of it, but — I know he is your husband, but he is not good to work with. He’s not… “ She trailed off, looking at Ilya.  
  
“Nice,” he said, in his heavy, gruff accented English.   
  
“Oh,” Yuuri said. They were having this conversation, too. Strange. He shifted backwards, crossing his arms. The muscle in his right shoulder felt tight, and he began to idly rub it. “Are you considering another coach? It’s OK. I won’t tell Victor until you’re ready.”  
  
“We are,” Ilya said, slowly, looking at Katya.  
  
She smiled, smaller than her usual, and leaned forward on the table. Three bangle bracelets clattered against the metal tabletop, and she fidgeted with a fourth. “We want you to do it,” she said, staring at him directly in the eye.  
  
“To tell him?” Yuuri asked, blinking.  
  
“To be our coach!”  
  
Yuuri’s mouth fell open. He stared at them, sure he’d heard wrong. “Ah — I’m sorry, could you say that again?”  
  
“We like your help," Ilya said. “We learn from you.”  
  
“You make us want to keep working,” Katya said. “I’ve practiced my double Axel every day!”  
  
“That is, ah. Good, good,” Yuuri said. “Spasibo. But — I am not a coach. I’m a skater, just like you.”  
  
Katya waved one impatient hand, bracelets jingling. “You work with Victor. You’re already coaching us.”  
  
This was almost unbelievable. If it wasn’t making his heart race and stomach turn to even have this conversation, Yuuri would have laughed. “I understand that you’re having a hard time adjusting to the new situation,” he said, after a moment, and he saw Ilya roll his eyes.   
  
“It is not the situation," he said. His arms were crossed, too, but in the tight way of someone holding back anger. “It is that he makes Katya cry.”  
  
She laughed, but it was without humor. “That was only the once,” she said, but Ilya made a sharp huffing sound.  
  
“What did he say?” Yuuri asked, not really wanting to know.  
  
“It’s no one thing,” she said. “It’s not even —he’s a very good skater. His advice on our program, it is good. He has good ideas. But… “  
  
“‘Just try harder!’” Ilya said, his voice pitching strangely lower to let Yuuri know he was imitating Victor. “‘If you really wanted to land that jump, you would do it!’” He shook his head, one small, sharp shake. “We do not lack the wanting,” he said. “We are wanting to improve.”  
  
“I know,” Yuuri said. “It’s — that’s just how he talks.”  
  
“She is so frustrated some days, she cannot sleep,” Ilya said. “She cannot sleep, it is dangerous for us both. She falls. I fall.”   
  
“So you should be our coach!” Katya said, as though the decision had been made.  
  
Yuuri glanced around the lobby. He was still incorporating everything they had told him, but he knew the answer to this part, at least. “I understand what you’re saying. But I actually can’t be your coach. Not — not because I am not honored by your request, because I am. Really,” he said, bowing slightly. “But my visa status is shaky as it is. I would not want to endanger being able to live and train here, with you all, and with Victor, by doing something that would catch the eye of the government.”   
  
Katya’s shoulders sank. “We didn’t think of that,” she murmured. “We had so many good arguments for everything else.”  
  
Yuuri nodded, certain this was true. “It does not mean I won’t still help you. Not as your coach — that’s Victor — but, ah, as someone who’s been through much of this before.”  
  
“Really? Like a, what is the word, mentorship?”  
  
“Oh.” The word sounded so formal and made Yuuri feel, suddenly, quite responsible. But their eyes were wide and huge and they looked surprisingly small across from him, even bundled in their baggy coats, and honestly, he knew he could help a bit. “Yes, let’s — that’s fine.” he said.  
  
Ilya smiled, and Katya scooted around the table and hugged him. Yuuri patted her back awkwardly after a moment. “It’s really not a change," Yuuri said. “I’ve always been willing to help, for whatever my advice is worth.”  
  
“Ah, so much,” she said, laughing. “You’ll help us?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Then can you — could you maybe talk to Victor?”  
  
They both looked so young at the moment, in their school clothes, Ilya’s hair greased up in funny little spikes. Yuuri frowned. “I can start the conversation for you, if you’d like, but you’ll have to speak with him about this at some point. Particularly if you’ll be looking for a new coach next year.”  
  
“We’d stay for Yakov,” Ilya muttered, and Yuuri nodded.  
  
“I hope that is an option,” he said. “So — you want me to talk with Victor, about, ah. That his criticism is too sharp?”  
  
“Only a little,” Katya said. “If you will help us, give some advice, I can handle what he says. I am used to it from Yakov, anyway. As long as we are getting better.”   
  
“Do you want me to tell him that you’re considering another coach?”  
  
They looked between themselves. “Maybe,” Katya allowed. “Could we let you know when we’re ready?”  
  
“OK,” Yuuri said, “but if you’re deciding to switch, please be kind enough to give some notice.”  
  
They parted on friendly terms, and Yuuri wondered if they’d noticed his hands shaking when he’d waved good-bye. He paused for just a moment to lean against the wall leading up to the East Rink. Inside, he could hear snippets of Mila’s music and knew she must be working one-on-one with Victor at the moment. He wouldn’t interrupt them. In fact, he needed a few minutes to himself just to think about all of this, so he turned back toward the main rink. There, he could sit in the high sections of the stands and go un-noticed, comfortable in the sounds of the rink but far from its chill.   
  
What they’d said about Victor was, perhaps, true. He could be a good motivator. And he was a fantastic, truly  unbelievably good, skater. Watching him on the ice still felt like seeing a dream made real in front of Yuuri’s own eyes. When the issue had to do with technical mastery, his coaching was often brilliant but, at times, also uneven. Victor taught by and through example. After years of studying and mimicking Victor’s programs from grainy videos, Yuuri had basically trained himself to learn well from watching models, but that wasn’t true of every one. Some skaters needed more descriptive training. Celestino had balanced this for Yuuri and Phichit: he could talk through the technical elements of a jump, like height, speed, toepick and edgework, and arm and hip position, and then he could recommend exercises to strengthen their understanding of those elements. Ten single axels in a row to feel the way the take-off jarred up the leg and the dig of the correct edge, he might assign, or a half-hour of linking jumps with a Euler to get the timing right on the landing for a combo, or an afternoon spent doing figures until his edges were clean. Victor had small variations on one method: watch me do it, and then you try it. Now do it better!   
  
That certainly wasn’t going to work for everyone.   
  
Yuuri wasn’t sure how to talk to Victor about all of this. The others were clearly unhappy, but at the bottom of things, it wasn’t Yuuri’s job to make sure they all stayed happy. His first loyalty was to Victor. Yet he thought there had to be a way to talk about all of this, to compromise. Victor was unhappy, and so were his students. Couldn’t they find a common ground?  
  
He spent the afternoon in a hazy fog of anxiety, and his practice showed it. Yuuri took two hard falls during his full run-through of the short without ever trying the quad combo, which was enough that Victor was frowning when he finished. Whatever he saw on Yuuri’s face, as he skated close after the run-through, must have been honest enough. “You’ll do better tomorrow,” he said, and squeezed Yuuri’s shoulder before skating away to help Mila. It made him feel even worse, really, because that had been perceptive coaching.   
  
Yuuri took himself off the ice after that — or, more accurately, he took himself off of Victor’s ice. He put his hard guards on and walked, inadvisably, down to the West Rink, and there he spent two full hours weaving around intermediate-level skaters and falling. It was great.   
  
At home that night, Yuuri soaked in a bath and listened to the sounds of Victor puttering in the kitchen. He had too many new bruises to attempt hiding them, and really, it felt problematic to even try. Victor deserved to know that he’d continued practicing because he was his coach, but honestly, Yuuri didn’t have much of a moral problem with hiding things from his coach. Hiding things from his partner, however…   
  
“Hello there," Victor said, head popping around the bathroom door. “Souvlaki?”  
  
Yuuri blinked. “That’s different.”  
  
“Zhora found some new place. Mostly Greek. I ordered several things.”  
  
“Too many things, you mean.”  
  
Victor smiled. “It depends on your perspective, I guess. You should get out before you get cold.”  
  
Yuuri nodded and drew his legs up, then crawled very carefully out of the water. He heard Victor’s low hum a moment before he was wrapped in a warm, large towel. “Bad fall on the left side today?”  
  
“Falls,” Yuuri corrected. He rested his head against Victor’s shoulder, glad that he hadn’t gotten his hair wet. “Not my day on the ice.”  
  
“How are you feeling?”  
  
Yuuri sighed. “There are some things from today I want to talk to you about over dinner.”  
  
Victor just nodded, kissing the side of his neck. “OK. Do you want any salve for your bruises?”  
  
“OK.”  
  
Later, bundled into soft sweats and smelling faintly of medicinal cream, Yuuri sat across from Victor and six Styrofoam trays of Greek-ish food. He was starving from practice but uncertain what he should try.  
  
“Here, these,” Victor said, handing a plate over casually. “You’ll like the chicken souvlaki and maybe the pork. It’s the kebab-like thing.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“There’s sauce but it’s pretty heavy dairy.” He clicked his tongue. “Maybe it’s yogurt?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Yuuri said. Dairy didn’t sound appetizing at the moment anyway.   
  
He watched Victor pile his own plate with chicken and possibly lamb, a bit of rice, a small pile of vegetables. They both ignored the pita bread. “What is it you wanted to talk about?”  
  
Yuuri took a bite of his food. The chicken was surprisingly tender, with a spiced outer crust that was different than anything he’d tasted before. Dill, but not in the Russian way, and lemon, but more bright than strong. He couldn’t think how to describe it.   
  
“Yuuri?”  
  
He swallowed. “Katya and Ilya came to talk with me.”  
  
Victor nodded. “I know,” he said. “They need a new coach.”  
  
Yuuri felt his eyes go wide. “You knew?”  
  
“Of course,” he said. “They’ve needed a different coach for a while. Even with Yakov, I think, not that he’d ever admit failure. But he mentioned it earlier this week, that he thought they wouldn’t last the season.”  
  
Yuuri took another bite, giving himself time to consider his reply. “Did you know they would ask me?”  
  
“I’m not psychic," Victor said, grinning. “But it makes sense, yes? They adore you. I’ve seen them with their noses pressed to the glass at the gym, watching your workout.” He raised both eyebrows dramatically. “Of course, I have considered joining them.”  
  
“Of course," Yuuri said. “I’m glad you knew. Though you could have warned me.”  
  
“Maybe you should learn to love surprises!”  
  
“Not likely.” He took a deep breath. “I told them no, of course. I’m not you. I can’t compete and coach.”  
  
“You’re already —“  
  
“No, not on the scale you are,” Yuuri said. “I said I could, that I would help, would mentor, but you’re the coach.”  
  
Victor nodded, chewing his own food for a moment. Yuuri sipped his water. The kebab was good but a bit too rich; he wasn’t sure he should finish it all.   
  
“Has Yuri talked to you about coaching?” Victor asked.  
  
Yuuri froze, fork hovering over his pork. “Yuri? He definitely doesn’t want me to coach him,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Why?”  
  
“He’s been talking to Chris’s coach,” Victor said.  
  
Yuuri sighed. He started to cut the pork into small pieces, to have something to do with his hands. “I - I know,” he admitted. “He told me at the GPF.”  
  
Now Victor’s eyebrows were raised for completely different reasons. “Really?”  
  
“I promised I wouldn’t say anything,” he said. “He wouldn’t have told me otherwise, and he needed to tell someone, I think.”   
  
Victor’s lips pressed briefly into a thin, straight line. It made Yuuri’s anxious heart thump, just for a moment, before he could remind himself that this was a thinking face, not an angry one. It was a pause.   
  
He started to eat his now-diced pork in small, savoring bites, concentrating on it like a form of meditation. Chew, chew, taste. Swallow. His heart thumped, but more slowly.   
  
Victor sipped his water, then sighed. “He’ll hate Josef.”   
  
Yuuri looked up. “I, ah. I don’t know him well.”  
  
“He’s good, but something of a pushover.” Victor reached for a second chicken kebab. “Chris gets away with murder. He always has. Josef is stability and a bit of an enabler, probably.”  
  
“Yuri is… definitely not Chris,” Yuuri said, slowly, surprised to have to say the words.   
  
Victor laughed. “I like a surprise more than anyone, but if Yuri started doing shows like Chris’s, I think I’d have to cancel my career just to get away from seeing it.”  
  
Yuuri shuddered. “I can’t think of Yurio that way. I mean. Just. No.”  
  
“No,” Victor agreed. “On the other hand, Yuri would probably have no trouble convincing Josef to let him do Russian punk routines. And then maybe he’d emote a bit!”  
  
“It’s not emotion that’s holding him back this season, though.”  
  
“Not entirely," Victor said. “Josef has worked with a lot of skaters as they’ve grown. Chris was something of a late bloomer, actually. They focused on PCS over jumps for a year or two, found his style, and then came back with the quad Lutz. That was the year after the Olympics.”  
  
“I remember,” Yuuri said. He’d been an alternate to the Sochi games, something that Victor tended to forget, and had followed the competitors avidly. “Didn’t he have that scandal with the skier, from Luxemborg or —“  
  
“Ahhh, Sergio, yes,” Victor said, sighing. “That is a story that’s better than the papers made it out to be!”  
  
They spent the rest of dinner talking about old Olympics gossip and enjoying their Greek selections. As Victor cleared the plates, Yuuri sent a thank you text to Georgi for the recommendation. When he turned his attention back to Victor, he was leaning against the island, smiling over at Yuuri.  
  
“I won’t ask you to break Yuri’s confidences,” he said. “I would have liked to have an older skater I could talk to when I was his age.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. “I would have, as well,” he admitted. Most of his training in Japan had been very lonely, once Yuuko had lost interest in competing herself. In Detroit, he’d been the oldest student there. Mentoring was a new role for him, but he felt it might be more valuable because he’d always wished for one of his own.   
  
“Now if Dima starts asking you to keep secrets…” Victor teased, and Yuuri rolled his eyes. “No, it’s good. I’m glad they confide in you. The younger ones would with me, sometimes, when Yakov was around, but now…” He shrugged, but he didn’t seem to be trying to hide his discomfort. Yuuri appreciated that. “It’s different, I know.”  
  
“How is Yakov?” Yuuri asked, voice betraying the hesitance he felt at asking.  
  
“Fine!” Victor said, and then, when Yuuri kept staring at him, he sighed. “He is getting better, he says, but he is feeling weak some days. That’s not the word he would use. Tired. Easily worn out. He has no stamina.” Victor rubbed a hand over his face. “Please do not tell the others. I don’t know what he tells them when they speak, but I do not think he’s honest with them.” He dragged his finger through a drop of water on the counter. “I do not think he’s honest with me, but at least he is close to it.”  
  
“Do you think he’ll be back?”  
  
“In St. Petersburg? Yes,” Victor said. “Coaching? I don’t know. I don’t know if he can get on skates at this point.” He shrugged. “Nothing to do but wait and see, I think.”  
  
Yuuri reached over and covered Victor’s hands with his own. “At least we’ll wait together.”  
  
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “At least there’s that.”


	16. Thursday, 19 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor has an off day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning! You're going to see my skating calendar planning all over in this chapter, and I'm still not convinced I scheduled everything correctly. There are SO MANY competitions in the winter/spring! For fun (ha ha) I put my list at the end.

Victor was still home when Yuuri woke up a bit late the next morning. They hadn’t stayed up particularly late the night before or anything, having gone to bed after an hour of watching video from the day. Victor’s presence made Yuuri worry. “A bit of a rest day for me,” he said, when Yuuri found him in the kitchen. “I won’t have one again for a while. My first work is with Dima at 10.”  
  
Yuuri gave him a quick up and down look. He wore the gray velvet sweats he usually saved for weekend mornings and his least athletic tennis shoes. That meant he’d taken Makkachin out but nothing more. “You’re OK?” Yuuri asked.  
  
Victor shrugged one shoulder. “I woke up a little stiff.”  
  
That made Yuuri look him over again. They’d spent a few weeks last summer worried about Victor’s right hip, an injury that they had briefly been concerned would require season-delaying surgery. Instead, careful physical therapy, painkillers, and attentive medical treatment had kept him healthy, though it didn’t mean he was pain-free.   
  
“Have you taken anything?”  
  
Victor shrugged again, which meant no. “I think maybe it’s just the weather.”  
  
That was clearly not true. The weather and its effects on their abused joints were a topic of frequent conversation and complaint at home and at the rink, but it would have never kept Victor off the ice. Yuuri watched him spread an almost-invisible layer of jam over his protein muffin, and decided he could play along if it kept Victor from worrying. “Well, keep it warm today, then.”  
  
“No news conferences about me, don’t worry,” Victor said, and Yuuri winced. The JSF had received all of the medical reports about his wrist, which was part of his contract with them. Over Yuuri’s quiet protests, they had used the information to hold a reassuring press availability with a doctor in Tokyo, to assure the skating community there that Yuuri would be fine for World’s. In truth, Yuuri felt that Victor’s Instagram post had probably convinced more people than their earnest efforts, but he was too embarrassed about the entire affair to think on it for long.   
  
“Oh! I also got a call this morning.” Victor offered Yuuri a muffin, but he shook his head. The grainy texture and sweetness didn’t call to him in the morning.   
  
“Yakov?”  
  
“Daniil.” Yuuri stared across, not sure who that might be. “The jump coach for the Moscow club.”  
  
Now Yuuri continued to stare, but he thought his mouth might have fallen a bit open. “What?” he managed.  
  
“He can be here February 6 and 7. It gives us a week after Euros and a week before 4C’s.” Unspoken here was that it would also give Yuri a few weeks to take what he learned and put it to use for worlds — or, before that, for the Cup of Russia final competition, where he’d have to compete if he didn’t do well at Euros. “What do you think?”  
  
Yuuri managed to close his mouth long enough to swallow. “Why — what — the Moscow jump coach? Why would that be a good idea?”  
  
Victor shrugged, carefully folding the paper wrapper from his own muffin. “Because the FFKK will pay for it,” he said. “Daniil is likely to be the coach for the national team next year.”   
  
“For the Olympics.”   
  
Victor nodded, his gaze focused somewhere past Yuuri.  
  
Really, national coaches weren’t that important for figure skaters. Every country appointed someone, usually as a kind of badge of honor. As an alternate to the last Japanese Olympic team, Yuuri had traveled to Tokyo for team camp briefly the fall before the Sochi games. Their 2014 national coach, Ito Wataru, had mostly wanted to observe routines in preparation for the team event. He’d conferred directly with the other skaters’ coaches and, otherwise, been a coordinator for the event more than an actual coach. Yuuri wondered if the same was true in Russia, and tried to imagine Yakov not giving his opinion directly, and loudly, to the skaters.  
  
That made him realize what Victor was saying, really. “You don’t think Yakov will do it?”  
  
Victor paused before he shook his head. “Even if he’s fully recovered, he’s lost too much time this year, already. The Federation wasn’t pleased to give him the role last time. I don’t think he’ll maintain it, particularly if I don’t go. I’m not entirely sure he really wants the job, either, though giving it up to someone else… ”  
  
Yuuri nodded, thinking this through. He pushed aside Victor’s Olympic possibilities for the moment. That wasn’t a discussion to have on a day when his hip ached. “So… Daniil would just come here to train us, even though he works in Moscow?”  
  
“Yes,” Victor said. “It’s not exactly a favor, though that’s how it was presented. I imagine the FFKK want to have a report of how things are going, too.” Yuuri frowned, and Victor’s hand slipped across the table. “It’s normal,” he said. “They do this to Yakov all of the time. Nothing to worry about.”  
  
Another thing to worry about later, Yuuri translated, and he nodded. “OK. If it’s the 5th and 6th, then… does it overlap with Junior RusNats?”  
  
“Not quite. They’re done on the fifth.” Victor sighed. “I wish they didn’t space the nationals so far apart.”  
  
“At least it’s in St. Petersburg.”  
  
Victor agreed, tucking into the muffin while Yuuri pulled out one of the quick breakfasts he’d put together earlier in the week. The refrigerated sorrel would be good.  
  
“Are you inviting any of the juniors to the clinic? It’s a quick turn around.”  
  
“They’ll be fine. The Asian Games are worse for you.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. The Asian Winter Games in Sapporo and Four Continents in Gangneung, South Korea, overlapped directly this year; the opening ceremony for the Asian Games happened on the same day as the men’s free skate for 4CC, though the skating events started a few days later. They hadn’t talked much about their schedule for that. Four C’s felt far away, but it was less than three weeks at this point.  
  
As though reading his mind, Victor said, “It’s coming up fast, isn’t it? This time of year is always so crazy.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. “I know you said you’re coming to Gangneung, but — not Sapporo, right? Should I ask Minako?”  
  
Victor frowned. “I don’t know. I hate to miss anything. But junior worlds is only about two weeks later, and I will have missed a whole week of training with the others by then.” His frown deepened, the drama growing. “I hate the thought of leaving you, though.”  
  
Yuuri didn’t love the idea of being away from Victor, either, but he knew Phichit would be at both competitions. Sapporo wasn’t home like Hasetsu, but it was Japan, and he would have some home country comforts to enjoy. Victor, on the other hand, would actually be home, but he’d also be hitting the rink every day, getting his morning calls from Yakov, and probably driving Yuri to murder.  
  
That last actually didn’t seem like an exaggeration. “What would you think if I took Yurio with me?” Yuuri asked, mouth acting before his brain could fully catch up.  
  
Victor blinked. “What? In place of Minako?”  
  
“No, no,” Yuuri said, stifling a laugh. The idea of Yuri as a coach, even as a stand-in, was terrifying. “No, Mila pointed out, he might like to see Otabek at 4C’s. If he comes along for that, instead of sending him back to Russia with you…” Yuuri shrugged, delicately not mentioning the potential for violence between them. “I’m sure he could practice in Sapporo while I’m competing.”  
  
Victor raised an eyebrow. “And audition a new coach?”  
  
He actually hadn’t thought of that, but it made a bit of sense. Four Continents would have more major coaches than the Asian Winter Games, but there would be a few there, too. Celestino might make it; Seung-Gil’s coach, too. Yuri would get to see them a bit closer up, since those games tended to inspire slightly closer quarters between skaters than the regular competitions. “I don’t know," Yuuri admitted. “Maybe he could at least see a few in action, think about his options. Maybe just a break where he’s not competing.”  
  
Victor shrugged. “Seems OK if he wants to and if we can work out the visa in time. And assuming he doesn't need to show his face at the final for the Russian Cup."   
  
If Yuri had to compete in the final domestic competition to secure his place at Worlds, it meant that disaster had struck at Euros. It seemed better not to think about it. Yuuri knew the visa problem would likely be a quick fix. Yakov always knew someone who knew someone; if Victor remembered to ask him the next morning, they’d likely have it all worked out within the day. More important than the bureaucracy would be getting Yuri on board. He decided he’d ask at lunch.   
  
However, a few hours later, when he arrived in the cafeteria, Yuri was nowhere to be found. Yuuri took his usual seat with Mila and asked if she’d seen Yuri already that day.  
  
“He’s fixing his Lutz with Victor,” she said, rolling her eyes. Victor had stayed off the ice for most of the morning, including coaching Dima from the sidelines, but apparently his rest day was over. “I thought he was going to get jump help brought in?”  
  
“Ah, right,” Yuuri said, then stopped himself before he brought up the specific name. Mila knew the Moscow rink well, and Yuuri would let Victor figure out how to handle this. “The jump clinic isn’t exclusively for Yuri. I’m getting some advice on my combination, and I think it’s open to anyone.”  
  
Mila grinned, stabbing a carrot on her plate with a fork. “The quad-quad, is it?” Yuuri nodded. “Will you have it by Worlds, do you think?”  
  
“Maybe,” Yuuri said. “I’m not even fifty percent on it now.” He raised an eyebrow. “How’s your triple Axel coming along?”  
  
“I might be just over fifty percent with it,” she said, sounding disappointed.  
  
“That’s actually really good!”  
  
“Right, I’ve seen your programs, remember?”  
  
“And also my practices,” Yuuri said. “I do OK with the triple Axel, but I bet you’re more consistent on the triple loop than I am. I never add them to my combos.”  
  
“I like them,” she said. “I like the Axel, too, but I feel like I have a block around it.”  
  
“Have you thought about putting one in your exhibition piece?” Yuuri mashed what seemed to be a potato against the back of his fork. “You could try it in front of an audience that way. It’s how I started.”   
  
Mila smiled. “That’s not a bad idea. I do the double already.”  
  
“I know. It’s very nice!”  
  
“Thank you.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have advice for a bad Lutz at the moment?”  
  
“Your Lutz is enormous,” Yuuri said, surprised. “You don’t need my advice. I should be taking some from you!”  
  
“Not for me.” Her eyes flickered around the room, clearly making sure she wasn’t going to be overheard. “What do you think Yuri can do to fix his before Euros?”  
  
Stop growing, Yuuri thought, but that wasn’t useful. “I don’t think the technique he’s always had is going to work for this one. It’s not something — I don’t think it’s something that can be fixed this quickly, not before Worlds, not this year," Yuuri said. “Besides, you know how it works — they’ve seen him under-rotate twice this year, and so —“  
  
“Oh!” Mila’s eyes widened briefly, and then she fixed Yuuri with a strangely curious stare. “Yes, very interesting, but let me ask you a serious question: How often do you and Vitya have sex?”  
  
“What?” Yuuri could feel his face flush. “What — why — Mila!”  
  
“So that’s like, what, a couple times a week?” Her voice seemed louder than normal, certainly louder than it had been. Yuuri felt like she was shouting to the whole room. “You must be so… “ Abruptly, her voice dropped in volume. “OK, he’s gone.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Yuuri said.   
  
“Yuri was headed over,” she said. “I knew this would be the best way to turn him around voluntarily.”  
  
“Thanks a lot," Yuuri said, but he laughed, too. At least the other tables were empty. “Oh, god, now he’ll be a monster this afternoon.”  
  
“When is he not, these days?” she asked. “Honestly, if this goes on much longer, I’m calling his grandfather myself.”   
  
“He doesn’t seem well,” Yuuri agreed. He pushed his tray aside, ignoring the mashed vegetable he couldn’t identify.   
  
“He’s worse since he’s talked with Yakov,” Mila murmured. She gave him an evaluative look. “Do you have any idea why? Has Vitya said anything?”  
  
“About Yuri talking to Yakov?”  
  
“Or about Yakov in general.”  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “He hasn’t mentioned anything about him,” he said. “At least, nothing new. He’s going to more physical therapy and he hates his new diet.”  
  
“Well, if he’s energetic enough to hate things again, that seems like a good sign!”  
  
“That is a low bar, but I understand,” Yuuri said. Really, he didn’t know much about how things were going with Yakov. Victor usually shrugged him off when he asked, saying their conversations were full of the same old requests: don’t forget to turn out the lights at night, make sure the juniors are listening to their tutors, have you remembered to tuck in your elbows during your jumps, etc. He’d decided not to push Victor, even on the mornings when he seemed particularly short or driven by the ghost of Coach Yakov on the ice.   
  
Maybe, he wondered as he packed up his things from lunch, he’d made the wrong decision about that.  
  
Yuuri went right back to the ice after lunch in order to be available for juniors practice. If Victor’s hip hurt more than usual, he wanted to be on hand to lighten the load. Plus, while he hadn’t promised the juniors coaching, he felt the weight of his commitment as their mentor nonetheless. They were practicing intensely for junior nationals at the moment, which were a week and a half from their start. While Ilya still seemed frustrated by their low placing at senior-level Nationals, they had been two places above the nearest competitor from the junior branch. They were expected to take gold at the competition. Yuuri knew that high expectations could sometimes bring more stress than motivation, and so he kept his eye on the juniors that afternoon.  
  
For the most part, though, things went well. Yuuri stayed on the sidelines, helping only when asked or when Victor seemed too busy with someone else to be called on. He watched and even demonstrated a flying sit-spin with a change in feet for Dima, then ran through the second half of a choreo sequence with Ilya while Nathalie and Katya practiced their triple toeloops and 3T+2T combos with Victor. Halfway through critiquing a change of edge on the sit spin that Dima was trying to level up, Yuuri looked up and was surprised to see Yuri watching them from the sidelines. His hair was pulled back, tight, his face serious. Yuuri hadn’t realized the hour had already flown by.  
  
He thought about what he’d seen in the juniors’ practice as he completed his own work that afternoon. The graceful landings Kayta had managed during her practice time with Victor spoke to an untapped level of skill. He spent a few minutes running triples on his own before he noticed Victor giving him a look.   
  
“Are you injured?” he asked, quietly, one hand resting on Yuuri’s elbow.  
  
“No, no,” he promised. “Just thinking.”  
  
“Think about changing your arm positions during your last set of spins, then,” Victor urged him. “Level 4!”  
  
Yuuri laughed, grateful, and went back to work.  
  


* * *

  
That night, they talked skating most of the way home and all through dinner. Dima’s jumps looked much better, good enough that Victor thought he had an outstanding chance for gold at junior nationals. Nathalie would likely be on the podium, too.   
  
“It’s a bit of a shame,” Victor said, as he set down the towel he’d used to wipe the table, “that juniors can’t go to Euros.”  
  
Yuuri shook his head, settling back against the refrigerator. “It would be Nationals all over again, but worse, for Katya and Ilya.”  
  
“True,” Victor said, “but Dima —“  
  
“Maybe,” Yuuri allowed. The European field was heavily dominated by Russian skaters. Dima had faced the top two men who would compete at Europeans just by showing up at Russian nationals (and by showing up at the rink every day). Christophe was solid competition, but only Emil and Michele had been close to their level in the last year. “Maybe top ten.”  
  
“With a second quad, he’d be even with with Michele’s TES.”  
  
“But he’s not competing in seniors this year,” Yuuri reminded him. He didn’t add that he was pretty sure Dima didn’t want to move up to seniors even next year, as that felt like a conversation for another time (perhaps after he’d had that confirmed from Dima himself).  
  
“He has a qualifying score from Ondrej-Nepala,” Victor reminded him. “But it’s cute that you’re protective of him.”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Do you think the crush joke is going to get old someday?”  
  
Victor grinned, hopping up to sit on the tabletop he had just cleaned. “It’s not a joke, darling. He’s clearly infatuated. Do you know, he now actually flinches when he sees the two of us together?”  
  
“That’s not true.”  
  
“Well, not every time," Victor allowed, “but this afternoon, at the end of practice when you were saying good-bye…”  
  
“Oh. Oh,” Yuuri said, dipping his head into his hands. He’d stopped at the boards to tell Victor he was going to hit the dance studio for an hour to work out a piece of timing that was bothering him in the choreographic sequence. Victor had leaned over, and Yuuri had thought he was going to whisper some final advice or comment. Instead, Victor had kissed the corner of his mouth, right there in public, one hand resting briefly low on Yuuri’s back. He knew he’d flushed red, but he’d made himself kiss Victor’s cheek in return. He lived in Russia, after all; it was time to start adopting some of their customs, particularly the affectionate Western ones that both made him uncomfortable and envious of Victor’s comfort. If Dima had seen that, though, well, no wonder he’d balked.  
  
Victor laughed. “It is lovely that you’re so embarrassed by this, but not our pair skate.”  
  
“That’s skating,” Yuuri tried, then let himself smile. “OK. I’m working on it.”  
  
“You never have to," Victor said. “I love you as you are. As I married you.”  
  
Makkachin woofed, suddenly, before Yuuri could completely melt at Victor’s feet. “I love you, too,” he said, “and to prove it, I will even walk the dog.”   
  
Neither Makkachin nor Yuuri wanted to be out long in the biting cold that night, it seemed. She did her business efficiently in the little courtyard dog park, sniffed two trees half-heartedly, and then nudged Yuuri toward the door. When they got back inside, Victor was settled on the couch watching video on his phone. Yuuri took off his shoes and padded over, watching over his shoulder.   
  
“There’s something not working,” Victor said, his finger hovering over a slowed down recording of Katya and Ilya skating at Nationals. “I’m wondering if we should redo their first pass before junior worlds.”  
  
They actually executed the jumps well on the first round, though the transition continued to be tricky. “The Salchow or the combination?”  
  
“Either," Victor said.   
  
Yuuri sat on the arm of the chair, just next to Victor. “It’s just an idea,” he said, slowly, “but Katya seems like she should spend more time away from Ilya for jump practice. Maybe trampoline training on her own or with one of the other women?”  
  
Victor furrowed his brow. “Because of the combo?”  
  
“Her height on the second jump is not good, next to his.”  
  
Victor grunted an agreement. “I’ve been thinking they could handle a three-jump combo at the start.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. “Ilya doesn’t have his timing right as it is.”  
  
“Ah, but that’s because of the landing,” Victor said. “She’s not good on the Salchow, and so he’s watching her, but not the right way. Not for synchronizing, just because…”  
  
Yuuri thought back to their practice. “He thinks she’ll fall.”  
  
Victor nods. “Half the time, he’s right. But her double toeloop is good when she’s not rushing it. I’m thinking we could do the triple-double-double combination, slow them both down a bit. She’d do OK.”   
  
“She gets a little forward on the toe-pick sometimes as it is,” Yuuri said. “I don’t think slowing them down will fix that.”  
  
Victor arched an eyebrow. “But you think having them spend more time apart will? They looked like children on a teeter-totter at Nationals, one up, one down. I’d sooner tie them together at wrist and ankle than separate them!”   
  
Yuuri shrugged. “It’s just an observation,” he said. “Like you said, he gets nervous about her. Might be good for them both to do more solo training. She did well today working with you and Natalya.”  
  
“You just want everyone to be a singles skater,” Victor said, his smile annoying and indulgent. “It’s charming. But we’ve never had to practice our pair routines apart to make them work, have we?”  
  
“That is very different,” Yuuri said, and then, in a rush, “and of course I practiced my parts without you there. I learned the whole routine without you there, didn’t I?”  
  
Victor blinked, then laughed, grin bright. He twisted around and reached out, cupping Yuuri’s cheek, and Yuuri couldn’t help but smile back. “You did,” he murmured. “And I should thank you every day.”  
  
“I’m free right now,” Yuuri said, feeling a little unsettled but defenseless against Victor’s smile.   
  
“Good,” Victor said, standing and drawing Yuuri behind him through the hall. “Then step into my office, and let me offer a very formal display of my gratitude.”  
  
If he’d had a troubled thought, he couldn’t remember it by the end of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2017 winter skating schedule (competitions that internationally ranked Russian or Japanese skaters attended during the 2016-17 season):  
> 12/22-25 All Japan, Kadoma, Osaka, Japan  
> 12/20-26 Russian Senior Nationals, Chelyabinsk  
> 1/25-1/29 Euros in Ostrava, Czech Rep. (practice starts 1/23)  
> 2/1-2/5 Russian Junior Nationals, St. Petersburg  
> 2/1-2/5 Winter Universiade in Almaty, Kazahstan (only for current students/recent grads)  
> 2/12-2/16 Russian Cup Final, Saransk, Mordovia, Russia  
> 2/14-2/19 4CC in Gangneung, S. Korea  
> 2/13-2/15 Euro Youth Olympic Winter Festival, Erzurum, Turkey   
> 2/19-2/26 Asian Winter Games, Sapporo, Japan (skating is 2/23-26)  
> 3/15-19 World Junior Championships, Taipei, Taiwan  
> 3/29-4/2 Worlds, Helsinki  
> 4/20-23 World Team Trophy, Tokyo  
> (and then sleep??? all summer??? haha!)


	17. Friday, 20 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nica visits, then Yuri visits.  
> Victor's happy, then Yuuri's happy.   
> Or, some of the tension at the rink finally finds its way home.

The next day started off nicely. Victor returned to the rink, assuring Yuuri that his hip felt better after taking it a little easy the day before. Yuuri stayed home to do his morning yoga in peace, then went in for a warm-up in the dance studio and some gym work. That also went well: he loathed cardio but his stamina had been improving, so he stuck it out. His wrist gave him no trouble, and he did a session of off-ice run-throughs of his step sequence that felt clean and strong.  
   
It was as he walked out of the gym that the day took a turn. A familiar, high laugh echoed off the concrete wall, and Yuuri paused. Victor hadn’t mentioned Veronique was going to visit. Maybe it was just a casual drop in, or she’d stopped to talk with Natalya.  
  
He shifted his bag to one shoulder and walked toward the laughter, though he kept his head down, pretending to focus on his phone. As he drew nearer the doors to the West Rink, he saw Veronique lounging against the doorframe, one leg bent and propped against it. She looked beautiful, wearing a long white sweater and gray patterned tights tucked into high boots. It reminded Yuuri of a magazine photo he’d seen of her, once upon a time. As he drew nearer and saw Victor, standing just inside the doorway, the picture was complete.  
  
At least, it was until Victor turned and smiled at him, a full, intimate smile. “Ah, hello, love, how was your workout?”  
  
“Good,” Yuuri said, walking over to stand next to him. Victor’s hand slid around his waist, drawing him closer than they usually stood at the rink. “Good morning, Veronique.”  
  
“Nica, please,” she said. “And good morning as well. Vitya was just telling me all about your love-struck junior.”  
  
Yuuri frowned, feeling his face heat up. He glanced around, grateful for the empty hallway. “Oh, ah, he is not — I just — please don’t say anything. I don’t think he would like to be teased about it.”  
  
She smiled, something that looked gentle but probably wasn’t. “Of course not,” she said. “It’s not like we haven’t all been through a first rink crush, yes?”  
  
Victor grinned. He wore street shoes under his practice gear, the usual flared black workout pants and V-neck shirt. Yuuri could see sweat glistening at the edge of his hair. Had Veronique been watching his practice? “We were about to get a cup of tea before my session with Dima starts,” Victor said. “Do you want anything?”  
  
Yuuri shook his head, deciding this was probably a non-invitation. Victor and Veronique needed a bit more time to catch up or plot or whatever they were doing, and Yuuri — well, honestly, he didn’t want to be a part of it. He accepted Victor’s kiss to his temple, then watched them go. Originally, he’d been planning to grab a snack, but now he went right to the West Rink instead. He could practice on his own for a bit and find out the details of Veronique’s visit later.    
  
After his wrist injury, he’d learned the name of the other regulars during his usual practice time, just in case he someday needed one of them to help him. That morning, he said a polite hello to Dmitri, the red-haired skater, and then started his own usual warm up. He was skating his short program choreographic sequence when Mila called to him from the boards.  
  
Yuuri finished his turn and then skated over. He turned off the video recorder on his phone before greeting her. “Good morning.”  
  
“What in the hell is he doing?” she asked, hands on her hips. Her accent was thicker than usual, a sign of frustration.  
  
“Who’s that?” Yuuri asked.  
  
“Vitya.” She rubbed her hands together as though warming them, though she wore a puffy pink vest over a long-sleeved shirt. Her cheeks were flushed red, and Yuuri wondered if she’d been skating in the other rink. He couldn’t tell whether she had skates on, though she didn’t seem to be tall enough. “He’s having some kind of secret talk with Veronique, very loudly, in the skater lounge.”  
  
Yuuri sighed. “Of course he is.”  
  
She peered at him closely. Yuuri looked down, focusing on the glittery pink of her nails at the end of her fingerless gloves. In one of his sessions with Yeva last summer, they’d talked for a while about how Yuuri felt obligated to take on the stress of others’ conflicts. This is not a drama I need to join, he told himself. They are adults. I need to protect my own time and energy.   
  
“Are you two in a fight?” Mila asked.  
  
“What? No!” Yuuri glanced around, grateful to find that Dmitri had headphones in and was paying them no attention.   
  
The glittery nails drummed against the boards. “And you’re not jealous or something stupid?”  
  
“No, no,” Yuuri said. “I like her. Really.”  
  
“OK. So this is just business.”  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “I have no idea what he’s doing. He didn’t mention this to me at all.”  
  
“Of course not,” she said. “Because if he said it out loud, he’d realize what a shitty idea it is.”   
  
Yuuri laughed. “Ah, no, that’s not really how Victor works,” he said, which surprised a laugh out of Mila, too.   
  
“Fair.” She glared across the rink. “Does Dima know she’s here for him?”  
  
It surprised Yuuri that Mila knew this, but then — well, if Victor was talking about it in the skaters’ lounge, no wonder word was already out. “No idea. But… I would guess not.”  
  
“No, probably not.”  
  
Yuuri looked up at the clock. It was nearly time for Dima’s usual session to start, and he was almost always early. “You could go warn him.”  
  
She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Why does Victor do this to us?” she said, groaning and briefly gripping the sides of her head. It was beautifully dramatic; Yuuri barely managed not to crack a smile. “All right, I’ll see what can be done.”  
  
That bought Yuuri another thirty minutes of actual peace. He used it wisely, concentrating on an escalating pattern of triple-triple jumps, then quad-triple jumps. He and Victor had watched video of Yuuri trying the combination, and they’d both agreed: he needed more height on the second jump, which meant a sharper dig with his pick and a firmer push from his grounded leg. That meant he needed to bend more deeply coming out of the first jump, so he’d have the power to push hard up into the second.   
  
So he ran it again, and again: quad Lutz, triple toe. Quad Lutz, triple toe. Then, when he knew he could really feel it, could recognize the burn that meant he’d have the right power, he set up his camera again and tried it for real: Quad Lutz, quad toe —  
  
And he landed it.   
  
“Yes,” he hissed, pushing himself into the next piece of choreography, sure that his face was split into a wide grin. That one would have counted. The video would give him something to study with Victor, and honestly, it meant he could physically feel it now. He could feel what a quad-quad combo should be like.   
  
Before he could try it again, he heard the doors open at the far end of the rink. When he looked up, he saw Dima stalk in, skates on, Mila not far behind him.   
  
Yuuri paused, then pulled out his own earphones and heard Mila muttering a steady stream of Russian. Dima waved her off, hopping on to the ice and practically throwing his guards down. He was several meters into the rink before he looked up, saw Yuuri, and flinched.  
  
“Ah, hi,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Sorry,” Dima said. “I was not - I forgot you’d be here. Practicing. I mean. I don’t want to disturb your practice!”  
  
“You’re not,” Yuuri assured him. “I’m getting pretty close to wrapped up, anyway. But I thought you had work on the other rink?”  
  
“Not, um, not right now,” Dima said. He glanced back at Mila, so Yuuri did, too. She had her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. “I, I won’t need much room.”  
  
Yuuri shrugged. “It’s open rink time.” He gestured at the man practicing his spins on the other side. “Take what you need. I’m going to run a few more jumping passes, then I’ll be done.”  
  
He kept to his word, running through each of his quads twice before he let himself cool down. As he finally left the ice, he saw Dima working through the end of his step sequence. It was a complicated pattern, and he did it passably well: for Yuuri’s taste, he had a bit too much double-footed skating, and his rocker turns sometimes came a little slow, but for a junior it was outstanding.   
  
Mila was waiting for him. She handed over his skate guards, then followed him to the little seating area nearest the exit. As Yuuri started to unlace his skates, she kept an eye on the ice.   
  
“He is very good,” Mila murmured.   
  
Yuuri nodded. It took very little to imagine Dima improving in the next few years enough to become internationally ranked and competitive at the senior level. “He probably wants time alone, huh? I haven’t had lunch yet,” he said, and she nodded, waiting quietly for him to finish switching out skates for shoes.  
  
Even once they were in the cafeteria, both sipping tea, Mila’s voice stayed quiet. “He’s very good,” she repeated. “So it is a shame he can’t get along with Vitya.”  
  
Yuuri pushed a tiny, dry sandwich around on his plate. He felt like he’d been having this conversation too frequently. “What happened?”  
  
She told him the story with the same low voice. Victor’s plan to bring Veronique in had gone about as well as Yuuri might have guessed. She’d been critical of the choreography that Dima loved, suggesting upgrades to the current program that he wasn’t enchanted with but Victor was excited about. Dima had skated worse than usual under the eye of a glamorous stranger, as well, and the practice session had eventually been cut short.   
  
“Dima walked out?” Yuuri asked, trying to imagine it.  
  
Mila shrugged. “Not exactly. He fell, and Vitya said something like, if you can’t even do that, maybe we should cut practice short, eh? And he just decided to take it literally.” She smiled, just slightly. “I was a little proud of him!”  
  
Yuuri couldn’t help it; he was a little proud of him, too.   
  
In fact, when Dima walked in, fifteen minutes later, Yuuri waved him over. As he approached, Yuuri could see he was still out of breath, and his hair glistened with sweat. “Oh, um, hello,” he said, holding his skate bag close to his chest.  
  
“Sit, sit,” Mila said. “Tea? Water? What’s your snack of choice?”  
  
“I’m — I don’t —“  
  
“Marie will know, it’s fine," she said, and pushed Dima down onto the bench she was leaving.  
  
Yuuri smiled over at him, hoping he looked as harmless as he felt. “Mila caught me up on your session.”  
  
Dima looked at the table, then over at the blank television, then up at where Mila was ordering — everywhere but at Yuuri. Maybe he really didn’t want to talk, which would be fine — but Yuuri knew he had to make the offer. As he started to speak, again, Dima muttered, “I like my choreography.”  
  
“I do, too,” Yuuri assured him. Dima looked up quickly. “I mean it. It suits you. Beatriz has choreographed for you before, right?”  
  
He nodded. “She did my free program two years ago, and a short and an exhibition the year before that. I did a clinic with her the summer before I moved here.” He finally set his skate bag down next to him. Yuuri noticed his hands were shaking. “I didn’t have much dance training. It wasn’t — that was the thing, until I was officially in the champions program, we couldn’t afford it. But she never made me feel bad about it.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He’d been lucky to work with Minako, and he knew it. If he’d been born even one town over, he’d never have done even half as well. Dima had succeeded without that advantage. “I want to ask you something and — you don’t have to answer," Yuuri said. “Do you like the choreography as is, or are you worried about hurting Beatriz’s feelings after she’s done so much for you?”  
  
Dima frowned and looked down. The thing was — well, objectively, Yuuri knew Victor was right. Dima’s program still had rough edges. He lacked good transitions, and much of the cross-ice choreography involved more hand positioning, less footwork, than it really should. He could see now how someone might build a program like this for a skater who felt he couldn’t dance, but Yuuri knew that wasn’t true anymore for Dima. He’d been through the same cross-training regimens that everyone in the SCC had. He probably couldn’t out-perform Yuuri or Yuri on the dance floor, but he had a natural sense of rhythm and a fluid grace to his movements, and technically he was well ahead of most of his junior peers.   
  
“Here we are," Mila said, setting down a plate with two small triangle sandwiches, along with a tall glass of sparkling purple liquid. “For you,” she said, and then put a little plastic tray of vegetables in front of Yuuri. “For us. Those are your favorites, I hear?”  
  
Dima blushed. “Thank you. I should — actually I was going to — I need to —“  
  
“Go, go,” she said, handing him the plate.  
  
“See you at afternoon practice,” Yuuri said, and Dima gave an awkward bow before backing out.  
  
After he’d left, Yuuri turned to Mila again. She sat across from him again. “Did you have a good talk?”  
  
“Maybe,” Yuuri said. He eyed the celery warily. It was never satisfying. “You know, Victor thinks Dima’s jealous.”   
  
“Jealous of…?”  
  
“Victor,” Yuuri said, “because of, um.” He gestured helplessly, embarrassed, toward himself.  
  
“Ha. No,” Mila said, then frowned in consideration. “OK, well, probably, but mostly —“ Mila shook her head. She looked at the door, as though she could still see Dima through it. “Jealousy is not his problem.”  
  
“Yeah,” Yuuri agreed.   
  
“He’s terrified.” Mila crunched through a carrot. “I’ve wondered if Yakov was even going to keep him on after this season. They’re not exactly a good fit.”  
  
“No, I wouldn’t think so.” Yuuri tried to imagine what Yakov’s stern yelling would be like for a skater like Dima, and he could only picture himself on the ice, younger and even less confident, crumpling under the pressure. Add Living Legend Victor Nikiforov and Grand Prix Phenom Yuri Plisetsky to the mix and, well, it was a wonder the boy was walking around and breathing.  
  
But he was. And Yuuri, though he would have wilted under the same treatment five years ago, was, too, and he thought he might be able to help. He just needed to talk to Victor, probably away from Veronique.   
  
That part proved to be easy. By the time Yuuri tracked Victor down at the end of the lunch hour, Veronique had left. He was alone in Yakov’s office, typing slowly into a series of colorful spreadsheets.   
  
“Nutrition sheets,” he said cheerfully. “So that I can take them along to competitions if I want.” He shrugged. “I had to send them to Euros anyway, since they handle all of the meals. I’m never going to remember who has which allergy.”  
  
“Natalya, shellfish,” Yuuri said. “Do you have a few minutes? I need to ask you something.”  
  
Victor looked up and grinned. “I also need to ask you something. No fair if your question is something romantic, though, because mine is about skating.”  
  
“Ah, no,” Yuuri assured him. “Mine is work, too, but let’s revisit the romance idea later.”  
  
“That is a deal. What is your question?”  
  
Yuuri didn’t let himself sit down. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to ask if he thought about it for too long. “Instead of going to Ostrava, should I stay here? No — could I? Or, I mean, it’s not that — you know I want to be there to see you skate, to be there with you, but —“  
  
Victor shook his head, laughing just lightly. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”  
  
“Oh?” He could see this was true in Victor’s expression, and he felt relief like a physical flood through his veins. He all but melted into the chair across the desk from Victor. “Really? What made you…?”   
  
He sighed, sitting back in his chair and running one hand through his hair. “I take it by now you’ve heard about Dima’s session this morning?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And that it was, perhaps, bad timing on bringing Nica in.”  
  
Yuuri raised an eyebrow to acknowledge that, both that it was probably true and that this was more than a timing problem. Victor rolled his eyes. “OK, yes, you’re right. Anyway. They need, all of the juniors, more time. More attention. And without dropping out —“  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, and Victor nodded.  
  
“Even if I wanted to,” he said, “Yura isn’t consistent enough this season to carry Euros on his own for us. And I’ve probably made the Federation mad enough I’ll need a podium placing to go to Worlds.”  
  
That was as terrifying as it was true, Yuuri thought. “I can help. I want to help. I just don’t know how to work it.” His visa prevented him from working while he was in Russia. Anything that garnered compensation would require a different type of permit to stay. Victor’s lawyer brother had warned them about this in some detail.   
  
“Well,” Victor said, voice again turning light, “of course, we can’t technically hire you as a coach, yes? But since you’ll be staying behind to get some extra practice in, and they’ll all be here to do extra practicing in preparation for junior nationals… I’m sure it might be possible that you all manage to run into each other at their scheduled practice times each day.”  
  
“I think so,” Yuuri said, catching on.  
  
“I have their schedules. It’s the same as usual. Yakov just bought up the time slots through Worlds for everyone. It was like his way of expressing confidence,” Victor said, shaking his head. “Speaking of whom, I’ll let him know what we’re doing, but I don’t know if you should mention it beyond the rink yet.”  
  
“Ah, so, I shouldn’t mention this to all seventeen of my close Russian skating federation board member friends?”   
  
“Maybe just half,” Victor said, one finger to his chin, pretending to think about it. He met Yuuri’s eyes, smiling, though it quickly turned to a frown. “Ugh, god, I hate traveling without you.”  
  
“I know.” Yuuri said. “And if you need me to be there, I will be. I would love to be there for you.” He leaned forward on his elbows, staring at Victor over a sea of paperwork and flickering dust. “I won’t look away.”   
  
“I know,” Victor said. “Which makes it better and worse all at the same time.” He rested his hand briefly on Yuuri’s forearm, then drew back, his smile slightly wry. “Do you think we’re the most romantic thing to ever happen in this office?”  
  
“I do not want to speculate.” Yuuri meant that. All alternatives were poor: That Yakov had once (or many times?) had romantic liaisons here, and that he had never expressed anything but dour disdain here. “Tell me more about this morning?”  
  
The story he told matched Mila’s nearly perfectly. To his credit, Victor even understood Dima’s reluctance to take the notes. “But he’ll need to,” he said, crossing his hands over a stack of papers.   
  
“Why? His current program puts him ahead of everyone he’ll meet at nationals, doesn’t it?”  
  
Victor raised both eyebrows. “Of course. And he could probably win junior worlds with it, if that’s where they were going to send him.”  
  
“What?” Yuuri sat up, completely shocked. “He’s the best male junior in the country. Probably the best, or top three, in the world. Why wouldn’t they send him —“  
  
“Let me correct myself — if that were the only place where they might send him.” Victor glanced around, as though scanning the walls for someone listening in. They were the same as always, though, cinderblock covered with weirdly grim pencil drawings of the Russian countryside in winter, with a few plaques interspersed celebrating ancient awards. “I’m old and controversial. Yura is young and inconsistent. Fedor, from Moscow, is pretty good —“ he said this grudgingly, almost sounding like Yakov “— but he’s had foot trouble the last two years. I think, and Yakov thinks, Dima will be named an alternate to Worlds after Euros, particularly if Yura has a bad showing and Dima scores over 160 in his free skate at junior nationals.”  
  
“One-sixty…” Yuuri found himself staring up at the hulking wooden cabinets behind Yakov’s desk. They had scratches at the side from years of wear, a hand reaching for the particular side door that hid his well-stocked liquor selection. Yuuri didn’t need a drink, but he suddenly understood how the urge would start. “Phichit’s free was barely over 160 this year.”  
  
“And Dima had 165 at senior nationals, with his program as-is. Yakov did a few tweaks to bring it to senior level, and he clearly has the quad toe.”   
  
Yuuri rubbed his face. “Nationals, though.”  
  
“Yes. Slightly over-scored, to be sure. But — “  
  
“So you brought Veronique to turn it into a senior program,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Yes,” Victor said. “There are improvements for the junior program, too, certainly, but — “  
  
“Does he know?”  
  
Victor shrugged. “How could he not? He must have seen his score and Yuri’s score and put this together.”  
  
“Ah. So you haven’t told him.”  
  
“I said it like this: ‘Dima, let’s make your program even bigger and better! Who knows what worldly challenges await!’” Victor said this in nearly the same voice that he’d once declared he would become Yuuri’s coach (with none of the suggestion but all of the aggressive charm).  
  
Yuuri put his head into his hands. “You have to tell him.”  
  
“No! Then he’ll tell Yuri, and I’ll be sweeping him off the ice ten times a day instead of five.”  
  
“Vitya.”  
  
“He will murder people. Maybe us! Maybe Makkachin, oh, Yuuri, think of our sweet, innocent —“  
  
“Yurio isn’t going to murder anyone, especially not our dog, because the skating federation might want Dima as a backup,” he said. “And anyway, that’s Yurio’s problem, not Dima’s. You have to tell him.”  
  
Victor shook his head. “That’s not how it’s done.”  
  
“He’s not like you. I really don’t think he’s doing this math in his head. He’s just glad to be here, really.”  
  
Now Victor glanced up at the liquor cabinet, then shook his head. “You are adorable,” he said, in a tone that made Yuuri’s teeth clench. “But this is a Russian thing. Dima is here because he’s a Russian skater. We compete. That’s what we do. And he should be taking every advantage to improve his programs.” He raised an eyebrow. “But if you really think it would help for me to tell him that there’s a chance the federation will make him an alternate, at which point he’ll need to cheer for the failure or injury of his teammates in order to have a shot on the biggest stage in the skating world, where he will likely — with or without our intensive help — score outside of the top ten and possibly cost us a spot at the Olympics next year, then why don’t you send him right in?”  
  
Yuuri stood up. “Fine,” he said, and turned away from the desk. “Have your Russian way. But just remember, not everyone appreciates surprises.”  
  
His hand was on the doorknob before Victor said, “Yura.”  
  
“Victor.”   
  
He sighed, and it was deep enough to make Yuuri turn back around. “I can’t make you all happy.”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “This isn’t about whether I’m happy,” he said. “It’s about Dima.”  
  
“I can’t make him happy, either.”  
  
Now it was Yuuri’s turn to sigh. “I don’t really want to argue with you,” he said, after a moment. He didn’t think Victor was taking the right strategy here, but he also knew he was under a lot of pressure. Maybe he was right, anyway. Maybe Dima was already thinking in terms of being sent to senior worlds; maybe he had some hidden immediate ambition under his shyness.  
  
“I don’t want to argue, either,” Victor said. “I have enough anger every day from the other Yuri.”  
  
“You should buy him a juice box,” Yuuri said.   
  
Victor smiled, just slightly. “He won’t take it from me, but I’ll try again.” Yuuri stood still, eyes darting around the room. The silence wasn’t exactly full of anger, but it was strange, tense, almost awkward. He wasn’t sure what to say.  
  
Luckily, Victor spoke first. “I’m not — I understand your points. I’ll think about what I can say to Dima. It doesn’t seem productive to do anything before junior nationals, anyway.”  
  
“Probably not,” Yuuri said, since there was really only a day left before Victor’s departure. This was a compromise. He felt relieved that Victor was even trying to see things from his point of view. “All right. I’ll — see you later?”  
  
“Of course,” Victor said. “You’re running stroking practice later?”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri said. “You should get some lunch.”  
  
“Mm, I’ll find something. See you soon.”    
  
They had scheduled stroking practice for that afternoon because there would be no other organized practices over the weekend. Saturday was still a rest day, technically, but they’d also get together to watch run throughs of everyone’s programs. Sunday was a travel day for the seniors going to Ostrava and an actual day off for the juniors.  
  
It worked out well, though, because having everyone together made it easy to mention Yuuri’s change of travel plans. Upon hearing that Yuuri was staying, the juniors, even to Yuuri’s usually oblivious and skeptical eye, seemed to brighten up immediately. Yuri scowled.   
  
“I’ll still want everyone to do a demonstration run-through before we leave. Plan on 4 p.m. here tomorrow, all right?” Victor said.   
  
They all agreed, then returned to the exercises that Yuuri had set them. For once, Victor joined in. “I can always use the extra practice,” he said, grinning, when Yuuri skated over to offer a quick suggestion to Katya.   
  
His lines were nearly perfect on the ice, as good as Yuuri could do, and he practiced figures much more frequently than Victor did. It made him smile.  
  
They left directly that afternoon after abbreviated group sessions. The juniors had some conditioning sessions set with one of the rink trainers, but neither Yuuri nor Victor felt particularly called to join in. “I feel old just hearing them talk about it,” Victor admitted as they drove home in the falling dark. They had waited just long enough to get their skates in the queue for sharpening, and now there was no sunlight left on the streets around them.  
  
“Mm,” Yuuri said. “Perhaps I can help you recapture your youthful energy when we get home?”  
  
Victor grinned, slowly and with meaning, and agreed.   
  
They’d made it to the bed and out of half of their clothes, taking their time, when the door buzzer sounded, followed by a flurry of knocks. Victor cursed in Russian, and Yuuri privately agreed. No one else would both be allowed up by security and make such a racket: it had to be Yuri.  
  
“I’ll get it,” Yuuri said, sitting up. He pulled on his shirt, trying to ignore Victor’s sad sigh as he did so.  
  
“We could be very quiet,” Victor suggested. “Maybe he’d go away?”  
  
Yuuri nearly snorted. “Uh-huh.” He stood and slid into his slippers. “You can stay in here for a while, if you want.”  
  
Victor glanced at his own lap. “We’ll have some time later, yes?”  
  
“Yes," Yuuri promised, and Victor sighed again.  
  
“Then I’ll be out in just a minute.”   
  
Yuri, it turned out, had brought a bag of pet supplies and a full cat carrier. “If you’re not traveling then I don’t have to leave her with that moron.”  
  
“Who…?”   
  
“Ivan was going to watch her.”  
  
“Oh.” Ivan was Yuri’s roommate, assigned by the Champions school. He was slightly older than Yuri and about three times as large; he was apparently a very good hockey player, or at least good at winning fights on the ice. Most of the time, he and Yuri got along because they were always mad at other people and could bond over their constant states of rage. The rest of the time, Ivan watched terrible TV without headphones on and laughed too loudly, in Yuri’s telling.  
  
“Hello, Yura.” Victor padded out of the bedroom, then, wearing a tank top and track pants. Yuuri saw a round pink mark over his exposed collarbone and looked away, quickly, hoping he hadn’t blushed. “Ah, is that Potya?”  
  
“Does she like dogs?” Yuuri asked.  
  
“No, of course not,” Yuri said. “But she’s smart enough to stay away. Where should I put her stuff?”  
  
“Guest room,” Victor said, unfazed. As Yuri stomped through, he shrugged. “He’s dropped her before. I cat-sat when he went to junior worlds. Makka thinks Potya is hilarious.”  
  
Yuuri glanced over at where their dog had gone right back to lounging on her pillow by the windows. “I bet.” He walked over to the refrigerator, studying the take-out menus. “What do you feel like tonight?”  
  
“Nothing, yet.”  
  
“It’s Friday, though. We should order soon if we want food at a reasonable hour.”  
  
Yuri emerged, holding Potya. “Are you talking about dinner? Have you tried that Greek place that Georgi was on about?”  
  
“Oh, yeah, it’s good,” Yuuri said. “Let’s order from there.”  
  
“Good idea,” Victor said. “I can pick it up. It will be faster.”  
  
“Are we in a hurry?” Yuuri asked. “A minute ago you weren’t hungry.”  
  
Yuri had already settled in the living room. Potya leapt onto the top of the couch behind him, standing very still. Makkachin stirred enough to sit up and pant happily.   
  
Victor, watching all of this, shrugged one shoulder. “I’m sure Yura wants to get a good night’s sleep before the demonstrations tomorrow.”  
  
“Fuck off, Victor,” Yuri said. “Just because you need your beauty sleep doesn’t mean we all do. I’ll have the souvlaki.”  
  
Yuri stayed for dinner. Yuri also stayed after dinner. He’d suggested a round of video games before the food had even returned, and he’d cycled through YouTube videos on Victor’s smart television throughout their meal. His answers were shorter than usual but lacked his normal bite; he was still mean, but it felt like mean-by-rote. It took Yuuri most of his meal to realize that Yuri was nervous, and after that, Yuuri himself relaxed. Pre-competition anxiety was an old friend of his, after all.  
  
So Yuuri let Yuri chatter and pick videos, thinking he’d eventually wind himself down a bit. Victor, however, was clearly restless and ready for his departure. Yuuri found himself frustrated with Victor’s behavior. After all, he’d needed to improve his relationship with Yuri all year, and now he was ruining a perfectly good social evening with his sighing and exaggerated glances at his watch.  
  
“Vitka,” Yuuri said, the fourth time Victor made a comment about the late hour, “I’m sorry you’re so tired. It’s OK if you want to go to bed.”  
  
Victor blinked, then let his face fall into something less surprised, more seductive. “I’d hate to go to bed without you, love.”  
  
Yuri rolled his eyes and groaned.  
  
“I’m sure I’ll be back before too long,” Yuuri said. “But Yurio’s got to show me this new shortcut he found first.”  
  
Now, Victor frowned. “You want me to… go without you?” he asked.  
  
Yuuri nodded slowly. “It’s just for a bit, and you’re obviously very tired.”  
  
“Go tuck him in, jeez, whatever, then let’s play,” Yuri said, already reaching for the gaming console.   
  
Victor stood, and Yuuri, after a confirming glance at Yuri, followed him back to the bedroom. “Are you joking?” Victor asked in quiet Japanese after the bedroom door closed. He had only taken a few steps into the room, leaving Yuuri to lean back against the door.   
  
“He’s nervous,” Yuuri said.   
  
“No, he’s obnoxious,” Victor muttered, crossing his arms. “Yuri doesn’t get nervous. He gets angry. And right now, he’s angry at me.”  
  
The heavy bass and car-exhaust roar of Forza’s opening scenes played from the living room, and Yuuri switched to English under the cover of the noise. He stepped further into the room, keeping his voice low. “Showing up at our apartment is a funny way to express his anger.”  
  
Victor raised one eyebrow. “Monopolizing my beautiful husband on a night when I had other plans is a perfect kind of revenge, actually.”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Please. You don’t really think Yurio had that kind of complex plan, do you? He came to drop off his cat and because he’s nervous.” Victor turned, shrugging one shoulder as he crossed toward the bed. Yuuri glanced at the hall. “I was going to ask if he wanted to stay here tonight, actually.”  
  
“Oh, no,” Victor said, firm but not loud. He sat on the edge of the bed and crossed his arms again. “I’ll pay for the cab, but no.”  
  
“Don’t be silly. We’ll have plenty of time together tomorrow night, and he’s our friend. And he’s your student," Yuuri said.   
  
“And Yakov would have kicked me out, too, if he’d had a chance of getting laid,” Victor muttered, though Yuuri wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to hear that. He sighed and flopped backwards on the bed. “Fine. Invite him to stay, do what you want. It is your apartment, too. But — I’m not waiting up for you.”  
  
“Fine,” Yuuri said, surprised at his own rising annoyance. “Good night.”  
  
He took a moment to take a deep breath or three in the hallway and then the kitchen. By the time he joined Yuri in the living room, he felt reasonably calm. Yuri accepted the glass of water he handed over, then nodded toward the screen.  
  
“I’ll show you the shortcut, then I should get out of here.”  
  
Yuuri shook his head. “You can stay. If you want.” He shrugged. “Potya would probably like it better if you’re here, and we can make Victor drive us both in tomorrow morning.”  
  
Yuri kept staring at the TV. “Eh. She’s a cat, she’ll be fine,” he said, “but you know, I wouldn’t have to stay so long if you could just learn this stuff on the first try.”  
  
“Ah, I know, I know,” Yuuri said, laughing as he picked up a controller. “But I’m pretty good once I get it. Let’s start?”


	18. Saturday, 21 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showdown at the SCC + drinking with Mila, or, is this how Western couples behave? Yuuri investigates.

When Yuuri woke the next morning, Victor was already in the shower. It took Yuuri a moment to realize that it hadn’t been the sound of the water that had woken him but, instead, his phone ringing. He grabbed for it and answered, “Moshi-m-hello?”  
  
“Katsuki?”  
  
Yuuri winced. Not his phone, then: Victor’s phone. He’d been woken up by Yakov’s call. “Ah, hello, Coach Feltsman,” he muttered, sitting up. “Good morning.”  
  
“Uh-huh. Where is Vitya?”  
  
“He’s showering.”  
  
“Huh.” His word came out more like a grunt.  
  
Yuuri didn’t like the silence that followed. “How are you?” he asked, intending it to be a light filler of a question.  
  
He realized its hidden depths when Yakov barked an angry laugh. “Recovering,” he said. “Still recovering. I have physical therapy later today, which is the high point of my week.”  
  
“Oh. That’s good. That’s not — it’s not too hard?”  
  
“It is impossible,” Yakov said. “It is most challenging thing I have ever done, so at least I am not bored. The rest of the day, I am to rest.” He said it like a curse. “And I eat worst food on the planet.” He sighed heavily. “You are getting ready for Four Continents? Of course you are. Vitya mentioned you have new combination.”  
  
“Well, yes,” Yuuri said. “I don’t know if I’ll be doing it so soon.”  
  
“Of course you will,” Yakov said. “You listen to limits as well as Vitya.”  
  
“Thank you?”  
  
He grunted. “Now, you tell me, what does Vitya’s program look like? I get nothing from him except it is fine, it is fine. Fine will not work at Europeans!”  
  
“It’s good,” Yuuri said. He had caught glimpses of Victor’s programs during their afternoon practices, though he hadn’t seen full run-throughs in a while.  “He’s been hitting his levels on everything.”  
  
“Better than Nationals?”  
  
Yuuri thought. Victor’s spins had been Level 4 at Russian Nationals, but they probably wouldn’t have earned that score outside of his own country. “Mostly,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Hmm.” Yakov sighed. “Camel spin? Bad leg spin?”  
  
Yuuri took a moment to process, then said, “Ah, no, broken-leg spin is fine. Actually his step sequences are good.”  
  
“The loop, then?”  
  
“Sometimes,” Yuuri said. No need to be anything but honest here, at least, Yuuri thought. Yakov could see through lies anyway, particularly about Victor. Still, even admitting he’d seen him pop into a double twice in the last two days made him feel like a traitor. He quickly added, “But mostly it’s great!”  
  
“Mmhm.” Yakov didn’t believe him. That probably didn’t matter if he was getting any video from the rink. “And Yura?”  
  
“Do you want to talk to him?”  
  
“What? Is — no, he is there?”  
  
“Yes, down the hall.”  
  
He sighed again, a harsh rush of air over the phone. “No. I want to know how his programs look.”  
  
Yuuri stared at the bathroom wall, feeling a surge of annoyance at Victor for leaving his phone behind. “He’s struggling with his quad Lutz,” Yuuri said, finally.  
  
“He should downgrade or switch to Salchow. He does not need it, and a fall will hurt more.”  
  
“Victor has suggested it,” Yuuri started, but Yakov cut him off.  
  
“No! No suggestions! He should tell him. Yura will listen, but Vitya has to be firm. Has to be a real coach! Not teammate, not friend!”  
  
That did not sound like Victor at all, really — or at least, not the Victor that Yuuri had worked with, who used a combination of kindness and manipulation to get what he wanted. Yuuri wasn’t sure how to answer. The shower turned off, and Yuuri debated hopping up, storming in, and throwing the phone at Victor. “I will tell him you said so.”  
  
“Maybe he will listen to you.” Yakov muttered something in Russian that Yuuri didn’t catch. “If he is free before 6:45, he should call. Otherwise, I will talk to him tomorrow.” He hung up without even saying good-bye.  
  
Yuuri was still holding Victor’s phone, staring at it blankly, when Victor walked in. He was patting his face dry with a towel and wearing his thick blue robe. “Oh,” he said, and Yuuri saw him glance at the clock. “Yakov?” Yuuri nodded. “I’ll call him back.”  
  
“He said only if it’s before 6:45,” Yuuri said. It was 6:50.  
  
Victor frowned and slung the hand towel over his shoulder. “You talked to him?”  
  
“The phone woke me up,” Yuuri said. “I answered without realizing.”  
  
“You could have come to get me.” Victor stripped off his robe, revealing just boxer-briefs below it, and then turned to the closet. One elegant hand leafed through the available shirts.  
  
Maybe it was because he was still a little sleepy. Maybe it was that he could see, on Victor’s right shoulder, the green-gray ghost of a bruise from the week before. Maybe it had just been building for a while, but Yuuri said, without thinking, “You deserve a rest day from Yakov sometimes, too.”  
  
Victor’s hand paused, then fluttered down onto a long-sleeved gray T-shirt. He pulled it from the closet and then tugged it over his head in one smooth motion, Yuuri watching the ripple of his muscles the entire time. “I deserve plenty of things I don’t get.”    
  
His voice sounded too low, a little too roughly accented. Yuuri sat up straighter, dropping his legs over the edge of the bed. He set Victor’s phone aside. “What are you talking about?” He meant it as an actual question, not completely sure what the topic was, but realized he’d fallen into English-language fight cliché almost as soon as he’d said it.  
  
Victor had moved to the closet again, now looking at the left side for his pants. “Last night, I wanted my husband all to myself, for example.”  
  
Yuuri frowned. “That’s a bit dramatic,” he said.  
  
“Not the first time I’ve been called that!” Victor’s smile was false and unpleasant.  
  
“We’re — Vitya, we’re together all of the time,” Yuuri said, trying to ignore a rising, shrieking sense of panic. “Are you — do you really think we’re, I mean, have I — haven’t we been…?”  
  
Victor waved his hand. “Our sex life is fine,” he said. “I adore it, actually, which is why I wanted to make sure we had more last night, as you’d promised.”  
  
“I did?” Victor nodded. Yuuri tried to think back to the rink, their flirtation there and then coming home. Yuri had knocked on the door, and — oh. He had. “I’m sorry. I meant it,” he said, “but I’ve never really seen Yurio like this.”  
  
“Hm.” Victor kept his back turned as he rifled through the closet. “Well, you don’t know him as well as the rest of us do.”  
  
Somehow, even though Victor said it matter-of-factly, it stung a bit to hear it. “That’s true,” Yuuri agreed. He rubbed his face, then reached to the side table for his glasses. As the room came into focus, he could tell that Victor wasn’t really paying attention to the closet. Instead, he seemed to be just staring into his hung-up clothing, one arm crossed over his chest. He didn’t know Yuri that well, comparatively, but he did know Victor. This was something more than being put off the night before.  
  
Yuuri thought of his conversation with Yakov, and another possibility came up. “Did something happen with Yurio in practice yesterday?”  
  
One of Victor’s bare feet tapped against the floor. “What do you mean?”  
  
“I don’t know, but you’re very worked up.”  
  
Victor selected a pair of pants — black today, undoubtedly tight, probably lined with fleece or something more luxurious even — and held them over one wrist as he turned to face Yuuri. “Tell me you aren’t worried I’ve been too mean to Yuri Plisetsky.”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, but he realized this was actually what he’d meant. From the hall, he heard the click of paws across the wooden floor. Makkachin had probably been up and dozing near the radiator in the living room since Victor first woke. Someone would need to walk her soon. The thought made Yuuri feel cold and tired, and he wanted to crawl back into bed instead of arguing with Victor. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”  
  
Victor shrugged. He pulled on his pants and smoothed them over his calves. When he stood back up, he rested both hands on his narrow waist, a frankly devastating look. “Oh, no?”  
  
“You said he’s angry at you,” Yuuri murmured.  
  
“Because he’s always angry. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who gets angry at food, Yuuri, and at dogs. Angry at dogs!”  
  
Yuuri smiled at that, unable to help himself. “OK. So — nothing happened?”  
  
Victor walked to his dresser and started pulling out socks. “Nothing of note.” His tone was too bright, somehow, and also final.  
  
“Fine,” Yuuri said. “Don’t — you don’t have to tell me. I’m going to shower.” He stood from the bed and dropped Victor’s phone onto his pillow. “Here’s this. I told Yurio you’d drive us in.”  
  
“Of course you did,” Victor said, almost a sigh. Yuuri walked into the attached bathroom without looking over at him again.  
  
Under the spray of the glorious shower, he wound himself up further. Clearly, something was bothering Victor about Yuri, which was pretty strange considering Yuri had come over to their apartment. Either Yuri wasn’t similarly concerned or he was the evil mastermind Victor seemed to think, hell-bent on annoying Victor to death. (Both, actually, seemed plausible). Was this about the possibility that Yuri might not be named to the Worlds team? Or had something else happened? Yuuri thought at this rate he’d have a better chance of figuring out what had happened by asking Yuri, and that would still require translating his angry language into normal human expression. Yuuri wasn’t sure he had the energy for it that day.  
  
And what was all of this about not getting enough time to themselves the night before? Did he think they really didn’t spend enough time together? Why was that Yuuri’s fault, anyway? It was Victor who woke up at dawn or before to cater to Yakov’s whims and who had chosen to stir things up at the rink. But maybe — was he right? Had Yuuri been wrong to have Yuri stay the night before? Had he missed some sign that Victor was nervous or needed more attention than usual? It was true that Victor generally initiated things in the bedroom, but Yuuri was reserved and, yes, less experienced. Victor seemed to like being the pursuer, liked caring for Yuuri — or at least, that’s what Yuuri had thought.  
  
He dried off and dressed with warring impulses: to go out and snap at Victor, and to go out and cling to him. By the time he’d reached the kitchen, he hadn’t fully decided which option called to him.  
  
Yuri was sitting at the counter, eating yogurt from the giant container. “He left,” he said. “Walked your dumb dog, then came back and said he had to be there for the maintenance meeting this morning or some stupid shit.”  
  
That settled that, Yuuri thought, glancing at the door. Snapping it would be.  
  
First, though, Yuuri did a little panicking. Not in front of Yuri, not really: He managed to hustle them both out the door and off to the rink with a minimum of yelling and no crying. This was a victory. However, en route, while Yuri texted or scanned Angry Cats of Instagram, Yuuri typed a few quick texts of his own. One coping strategy he’d developed with Yeva’s help was to reach out to people he trusted when he started to feel anxious about something. This had been easiest, strangely, with skating, where he trusted Victor implicitly and could therefore more easily convince his twisty brain that maybe there was some truth to Victor’s praise. It was harder to ask for help around personal matters, but he at least knew exactly to whom he should turn.  
  
That morning, he texted Yuuko and Phichit, separately, mentioning that he and Victor were having a disagreement.  
  
Both replied more quickly than they should have, considering the time difference.  
  
_**Phichit** : What did he do?!?_  
  
_**Yuuko** : Oh no! Tell me everything!_  
  
Yuuri replied to Phichit first, sensing that Yuuko might understand better over a phone call.  
  
_**Yuuri** : he’s mad YP showed up at our place last night when we were, uh. In the middle of something?_  
_**Phichit** : Uhhhh because Yuri should be able to magically predict when you’re getting it on?_  
_**Yuuri** : or something_  
_**Yuuri** : that would be creepy_  
_**Phichit** : So you disagreed over…_  
_**Yuuri** : he should be nicer to yuri_  
_**Phichit** : OK_  
_**Phichit** : Just_  
_**Phichit** : Yuri isn’t very nice?_  
_**Yuuri** : yp is 16_  
_**Phichit** : If you’re saying he’ll mellow with age, I’m 19 and I’m like 30 years nicer than him_  
_**Yuuri** : fair_  
  
He paused long enough to navigate himself and Yuri, who did not look up from his phone, across the street, then resumed trying to tell Phichit the story in detail. By the time they arrived at the SCC, Phichit was riled up and Yuuri was feeling better.  
  
_**Phichit** : the Russian system is SO CRAZY_  
_**Phichit** : and efffffff him for taking it out on you!_  
_**Phichit** : you’re the best student and husband_  
_**Phichit** : he’s lucky to have you <3 <3 <3_  
_**Yuuri** : thank you. seriously. thank you._  
  
Somehow hearing Phichit agree with Yuuri’s own take on this — that Victor was overreacting and being something of a jerk to Yuri — made him feel calmer. Talking to Yuuko for ten minutes before he hit the locker rooms helped, too. At the very least, it made him feel like he had a right to be at least concerned or maybe even annoyed with Victor. And then he had to take a deep breath because, wow, his life had changed if he could now be annoyed with Victor Nikiforov.  
  
The next time he saw Victor was that morning in the skaters’ lounge at the rink. Yuuri had followed Mila in, after completing his warm-up and conditioning training. They took their usual table in the corner and spread out a fruit cup to share between their cups of tea. Yuuri sipped his and listened to Mila chatter about the breakup between two of the hockey players and how her roommate had become involved by having to evaluate a cut hand.  
  
“Who smashes their hand through a car window, though?” she asked, shaking her head. “So stupid.”  
  
“I saw someone do it once in Detroit,” Yuuri admitted. “A friend of Phichit’s bet some guy that he couldn’t break his windshield with just a hit, and so…” Yuuri mimed a punch and then wiggled his fingers to indicate the ensuing shattering.  
  
Mila laughed. “Phichit knows interesting people, then?”  
  
“Oh, he knows everybody,” Yuuri confirmed. He felt a swell of loneliness, almost like homesickness, for Phichit in the moment. His advice that morning about Victor had really helped.  
  
Even as he thought it, Victor walked in. He held a large glass bottle of water and had added his favorite puffy black vest to his morning wardrobe choice, and as he walked toward them, Yuuri tried (and failed) not to admire him. He’d been distracted and jumpy since leaving the apartment that morning, his annoyance with Victor warring with his anxiety about arguing.  
  
“Ah, hello, you two,” Victor said, grinning at them both. His tone was too light and careless. Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “Mila, I have thirty minutes at 1 if you want to do a run-through before the demos.”  
  
She shrugged one shoulder. “Sounds good. Are we doing costumes for run-through?”  
  
“No, not unless you want to,” Victor said. “I didn’t bring mine.”  
  
“I might to test out the stretch,” she said.  
  
“Fine.” He took a drink. “Did you need time with me today, Yuuri?”  
  
Yuuri sipped his tea, hoping his face looked calm. “No, thank you,” he said. “How was your maintenance meeting?”  
  
“Postponed! Isn’t that always the way?” Yuuri looked up in time to see Victor grinning his way out of the room.  
  
Mila elbowed him. “Now are you two fighting?”  
  
“Why would you think that?”  
  
“No kissy faces. No heart eyes.”  
  
Yuuri groaned. “Not really,” he said. “Maybe. Not — seriously.” She elbowed him again, and Yuuri edged away. “I can be annoyed for a day now and then.”  
  
“Of course you can!” She raised her teacup as though for a salute. “Cheers to this!”  
  
They clinked cups and drank, and Yuuri laughed a bit at himself. “It’s silly,” he said. “Probably pre-competition nerves or something.”  
  
“Vitya doesn’t really get nervous,” she said, glancing toward the doorway.  
  
“No, I do enough of that for both of us.” Yuuri smiled as he said it. “It will be fine.”  
  
Yuuri spent the next few hours doing pretty intense exercises to help strengthen the jumping passes in his free skate. At Victor’s advice, he was focusing more on his transitions than he ever had before, hoping to further improve his PCS. Of course, he couldn’t spread-eagle into and out of every jump, but he’d found the combination too fruitful to ignore. He’d backed off of his usual difficult entries for nationals, but he’d need to put them back in if he wanted to medal at 4C’s. So the mohawk was back in before the Salchow, and so was the layback cross-ice glide before the triple Axel.  
  
“It is beautiful," Georgi said, when Yuuri met him coming off the ice. He was there in the daytime, for once, preparing to step into his assistant coaching role at Euros. “Even more beautiful!”  
  
“Ah, thank you.” He glanced past Georgi and saw Nathalie waiting to take the ice, wearing an updated costume. “Natalya, I like the lace additions.”  
  
“Thank you,” she said, briefly fingering the crossed green threads up and down her arms. “They show well on the Rippons.”  
  
“Oh, good choice!”  
  
“Everyone! Make sure you’re ready,” Victor called, entering the ice from the locker rooms. He was in his skates, towering over everyone. “Six minute warm up starts now.”  
  
Yuuri stood aside to let everyone enter the ice. Traditionally, the day before any big competition, everyone did a full run through of their free skate, with music, for the rest of the team. Normally, this would only have been for those competing, but because Junior Nationals would start essentially the day they returned, they did a full rink show. Well, almost full: Yuuri felt a little relief not to have to line up to perform as he had before they’d all left for the GPF. Instead, he kept on his skates mostly out of habit and courtesy, and leaned against the boards to cheer everyone on.  
  
Yakov had always made the demonstrations feel like a small competition, every skater hoping to win the prize of “least voluble criticism” at the end. That afternoon, though, things started on a good note. People were smiling during the warm up, including Dima and Yuri. Victor had even made a playlist of dumb American pop songs to play during the six minutes, in imitation of most of their competitions that year. Georgi ran the speaker and did voice-over announcements like those they might hear at Europeans, which made Yuuri laugh.  
  
After the six minute warm-up concluded, they drew straws for order: Mila, Nathalie, Victor, Dima, Katya and Ilya, and finally Yuri. It started off well and, blessedly, without major surprises. Mila started things off with a clean, well-done skate that had both her and Victor beaming. She did not add in the triple Axel, to Yuuri’s surprise, but he still thought she might try it at Euros. After Mila, Nathalie did a clean version of her free skate but downgraded to a double Lutz-double toeloop combination. Instead of yelling, Victor complimented her height on her other jump (a double Axel). Yuuri approved, and he started to relax.  
  
Victor did his free skate, and it was beautiful. The starting quad was now a Lutz instead of a toeloop combination, which he had moved to the second half to take advantage of the scoring bonus. His transitions were pure magic, every jump appearing as though it was simply another step in his dance across the ice. Yuuri applauded along with the rest of the skaters when he finished.  
  
“So, now, tell me what’s wrong,” Victor said, skating toward them. “You’re all professionals. You had to notice.”  
The juniors seemed bewildered. Yuri barked, “Your music sucks.”  
  
Mila said, voice a bit uncertain, “The jump in your final spin.”  
  
“Yes?” Victor wiped sweat from his face. “What about it?”  
  
“It wasn’t, ah, very high.”  
  
“Good,” Victor said. “It was probably borderline four, and then only because I changed edges partway through. What else?”  
  
“You could have more expression,” Georgi said thoughtfully. “Your hand placement during the choreography was too automatic.”  
  
“Fair,” Victor said, nodding. “Other notes?”  
  
No one else spoke. Yuuri thought perhaps Dima had stopped breathing, as though he could be so silent that he’d simply disappear (a familiar idea). Yuuri, though, knew Victor, and he knew Victor’s skating better than probably anyone else in the world, save Yakov or Victor himself. He also knew that criticism would be a comfort at this point. So he leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and said, “You might get an edge call on the flip.”  
  
Victor grinned. “I wouldn’t, but I should, you’re right. What else?”  
  
“You moved the combination to the end,” Yuuri said, “but you were tired. You’re probably close to losing in PCS what you’d gain in technical points by moving it.”  
  
Victor nodded. “It’s a good point. Anyone else as observant as Yuuri, here?” It surprised Yuuri that Yuri didn’t speak up, but he didn’t want to encourage a negative interaction, so he kept his focus on Victor. “All right, then. Dima, davai!”  
  
Dima’s skate was also clean, though Victor hummed and said he thought the triple Salchow looked over-rotated. (Yuuri thought that was probably right, but his quad toeloop had been perfectly clean). They carefully didn’t talk about how much the same it was from his final skate at the JGPF.  
  
Then it was time for Katya and Ilya.  
  
Overall, they did well. They stumbled on the side-by-side Axels, but recovered and sped into their side-by-side spins with improved timing. The cross-ice lift looked gorgeous. At the end, Katya two-footed the landing on the throw Salchow, and he could see her disappointment as they froze in their final position.  
  
“Well,” Victor said, voice thoughtful, “it is a very good thing you are competing in juniors, not Euros, because that would not even make the top 15. As it was, you might have a chance for the podium if the others all also have bad days.” His tone made it clear he thought the chance was thin.  
  
Katya began to skate over to Yuuri. Even from the boards, he could see the glisten of tears in her eyes. It hadn’t been that bad, really, Yuuri thought; the height on her Axel had been good for once, even if she’d dropped her shoulder too much and too soon. Something to work on.  
  
“It’s all right,” he said as she drew near. She rubbed a wrist over her eyes. “It takes time on technique. The height was so much improved, and your work shows! It — it can take years,” Yuuri started. “You’ve only just started correcting it, and —“  
  
“No.” Victor’s voice, hard and deep, surprised them both. “You can’t just run to Yuuri when you’re upset.”  
  
“That’s not —“ Yuuri started, but Victor talked over him.  
  
“Of course it is.” Victor sounded both reasonable and annoyed, and Yuuri thought this was his most dangerous tone. “But it’s not a good idea.”  
  
Yuuri crossed his arms. “What does that mean?”  
  
“I’m their coach,” he said. “And also yours. You have your own program to work on.” Victor smiled then, the too-bright smile that Yuuri had come to dread. “Unless that quad combo has magically fixed itself?”  
  
Maybe just the words wouldn’t have been so bad. Yuuri had endured Victor’s blunt form of coaching now for nearly two years, and most of the time, he could acknowledge the truth of what he said and let the insult slide past. That night, though, he had to watch Katya’s face as Victor mocked him, had to see someone who looked up to him flinch as the words sunk in, and it made something inside of him seethe and boil.  
  
He bent and removed his blade guards. “OK, Coach Victor,” he said, matching his calm to Victor’s. He handed Mila his glasses, then stepped onto the rink. “Let’s find out.”  
  
He’d been on the ice over two hours already that day, and done another hour in the gym on top of his training. By all rights, he should have been exhausted, and maybe he was. Maybe that was what brought him into the perfect, clear place he was in as he entered the ice. He felt more than saw the other skaters clearing to the edges. Victor might have said his name, but all Yuuri heard was the hish-snick of his skates stroking and the thrumming of his own heart. He did a circle for speed, turned backwards and kept his weight on his left foot. His eyes met Victor’s for a half-second before he shifted his weight to the outside edge of his left foot and tapped down in his right toe.  
  
The speed was phenomenal. He landed cleanly on his right leg, outside edge cutting deeply into the ice, and before he could extend his leg through memory he, instead, picked the ice with his left toe and spun up and around - around - around - around and landed, hard, solid, leg in an extension that hurt just enough he knew it was parallel to the ground. A beautiful quad Lutz-quad toeloop combination.  
  
Of course, one good pass would never shut Victor up.  
  
So he did it again.  
  
When he landed after that set, he sunk down into the spin that his choreography would require, then rose and threw both hands into the air, mimicking the stylish ending exit Victor had designed. His chest heaved, and his vision sparkled slightly. His head, though, felt perfectly clear, and more than that, he felt strong. He felt confident. He felt like the best skater in the world.  
  
The ice stayed clear. Yuuri had landed near the boards furthest from the entrance, where Dima and Ilya stood, both staring at him. He skated over to them, leaning one hand on the boards between them as he caught his breath.  
  
“[еба́ть](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B5%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C)," Ilya said, his voice a complete mirror of the admiration Yuuri saw in Dima’s eyes.  
  
“That was amazing,” Dima said.  
  
Yuuri nodded his thanks. “Outside edge, really lean on it,” he said. “You’ll feel it along the side of your leg and your knee. I’ll walk through it with you, if you want,” he said, and saw Dima nod frantically even as he turned back to the rink.  
  
Victor was headed toward him, skating with his arms crossed, and Yuuri gathered all the strength he’d just felt and met him at center ice. “Wonderful,” Victor said, with the slightest sour turn to his mouth. He clapped his hands a few times. “Everyone, do you see! A beautiful demonstration of the value of my coaching methods!”  
  
“Don’t do that," Yuuri said, stopping just in front of him.  
  
Victor raised one perfect eyebrow. “Do what?”  
  
“Use me as your coaching example.”  
  
“But you are an example,” Victor said, a little too loudly. “You’re my best student. A very hard worker!”  
  
Yuuri shook his head. “I’ll — I can be a model, Victor, I can show jumps or spins, but I’m not an example of what you’re doing right now.”  
  
Victor pushed his hair back with one hand. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“The way we work together, it’s not what you’re doing here.”  
  
Victor rolled his eyes. “Well, yes, as I’m not planning to sleep with any of them —“  
  
Yuuri groaned. “That is not — I mean, maybe it is what I mean. You’re terrifying them!”  
  
“We’ve talked about this,” Victor said. “It’s —“  
  
“‘The Russian way’? _[Bakarashi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baka_\(Japanese_word\))_!” Yuuri threw up his hands.  
  
“Yakov’s way,” Victor said, “and these are Yakov’s students, so —“  
  
“And you’re not Yakov!” He hadn’t mean to yell it. Maybe he hadn’t, even, but the rink around them was suddenly so quiet that Yuuri knew everyone had heard. This wasn’t just an argument in their living room, now.  
  
Victor stared at him, and for a moment, Yuuri thought maybe he was going to get it. Maybe he’d see, finally, that what they all wanted wasn’t an imitation of their ailing coach but, instead, the best that Victor could offer as himself.  
  
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Is this because I invited Nica to the rink?”  
  
Yuuri practically stumbled backwards, then lashed out in Japanese. “No! It’s because you’re being a massive idiot! They don’t need tearing down. This method of breaking everyone — what if they stay broken? What does your precious Russian method do about that? Idiots.” He turned and started skating for the exit, switching back to English. “Anyone who wants help, you can always come talk to me. See you tomorrow.”  
  
Mila held out his glasses and then his blade guards, and he clipped them on before stalking for the lockers. It took him maybe six minutes to get out of his skates, another minute to wipe them down and make sure the soft guards went on, and thirty seconds to get his feet jammed back into running shoes. He’d heard almost no sounds from the rink since he entered, and he didn’t want to think about it. The drumbeat of his pulse filled his head: angry, steady, frustrated.  
  
Mila met him at the front doors. “Ride home? Drink?” she asked.  
  
Yuuri just nodded, and he let her pull him out toward her tiny car. Cold air ruffled his hair as he followed her across the graveled lot. It hadn’t been snowing when they’d left that morning, but the low gray sky promised some kind of precipitation. Yuuri shuddered, not even pretending to listen to Mila’s cheerful babble as she dug in her massive purse for her keys. He hadn’t cooled down, and already his legs were beginning to feel over-stretched, an ache that settled in and warned of future stiffness.  
  
Inside the car, while she worked to get the heater on, Yuuri clutched his arms over his chest, shivering. It wasn’t all from the cold.  


* * *

  
He paid little attention to the route they took and was, therefore, mildly surprised to find they were parked outside of Mila’s apartment block. “If I take you to a bar, it will be on social media in an hour," she said.  
  
That was disturbingly accurate. Yuuri nodded and hauled himself and his stuff out of the car.  
  
Inside, Mila’s apartment was quiet and dark. She explained that her roommate had been spending more time away at a boyfriend’s place as she turned on the lights in the small living room. “Drop your stuff and take a seat on the couch. It’s stupidly comfortable. Tea or vodka?”  
  
“Ah,” Yuuri said, not sure what to do. Neither sounded good. Throwing up actually had started to sound pretty good. He’d just had a fight with Victor in front of the entire rink. Over coaching!  
  
Mila steered him to the long beige velvet sofa, where he sat and tried not to wring his hands. “Sit. I’ll be right back.”  
  
Yuuri sat still, waiting, trying to keep his breathing steady. He could feel the avalanche of dread and panic waiting to crash over him, and he fought to hold it at bay. He’d said nothing untrue! Nothing he hadn’t said already. Victor might be mad, but he would not be unreasonable. (The last was particularly hard to convince his anxious mind about). He thought he should check his phone — but what if Victor was mad? He wasn’t ready for angry text messages. In truth, he also wasn’t totally sure where he’d put his phone when he left the rink.  
  
“Here we are," Mila said, reappearing with her hands overfull. She set a glass and a mug before him: the promised vodka and tea. “Do you take jam?”  
  
“What kind?”  
  
“Black cherry.”  
  
“OK. Yes, thank you.”  
  
They stirred their tea quietly. The entire apartment was surprisingly quiet, more than Victor’s place. Yuuri couldn’t hear cars below or any sounds from the surrounding apartments — though that could be because everyone else was still at the rink.  
  
The rink. Oh, no, oh God, he thought, and then took a sip of the too-hot tea. “Ahhh!”  
  
“Whoa, easy there,” Mila said. “You’ll need that tongue for all the hot make-up sex later!”  
  
Yuuri nearly spit the tea out, and not just because of the temperature. “What?”  
  
“You fight, you make up,” she said, shrugging. “No?”  
  
“I… don’t know," Yuuri admitted.  
  
Mila’s eyes went wide. “Was that your first fight?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri said, but he could only think of one other example. “Ah, maybe since we’ve been married?”  
  
“First fight as a married couple! Let’s drink to that.” She clanked her tea cup against his glass of vodka, and Yuuri felt obligated to drink with her. He hadn’t been in Russia long enough to know good vodka from bad — it all tasted like chemicals and certain hangover to him — but he muttered a “Kampai!” and choked down a solid mouthful.  
  
“Married,” he said, and stared at his ring. Victor was his husband. And people had fights. Right? He’d seen all that American television. Western couples were like this! They fought, they made up. It was part of it all.  
  
But — did they fight at work? “I shouldn’t have said that,” Yuuri said into his glass.  
  
“What? What did you say, anyway? In Japanese?”  
  
“Oh, that he’s — that the Russian way of training is, ah, basically stupid.” He sighed, keeping his eyes down and expecting the automatic defense that Victor always brought forth.  
  
“You’re right," Mila said, excited, “it is. It really is!”  
  
“It — wait, you agree?”  
  
She nodded enthusiastically, her face lit up in a smile. “It is! Every time I go to a competition, when I talk to the others, they say, ‘Oh, but Yakov doesn’t really yell like that in practice, does he?’ And when I say, no, he’s worse at home, they make this face, like,” and she spiked her eyebrows up and made a perfect o with her lips. “I know it’s not the way everyone is.”  
  
“No,” Yuuri agreed. Celestino had been gruff, at times, but he’d never shouted the way Yakov had. Then again, Yuuri thought Yakov believed in his students about 200 percent more than Celestino had ever believed in Yuuri. “Does it bother you?”  
  
She sighed. “Yakov, he has a gift for yelling. He could shout at you and make you feel like he was just talking, sometimes. I don’t know how to describe it. I never felt, even when I was little, it never felt mean.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He’d never seen Yakov be actually cruel to his skaters, though he suspected he’d mellowed with age. His comments to Victor off the ice had frequently been sharp, and there were twists to Victor’s voice sometimes when he remembered his childhood that spoke of buried pain.  
  
“Yakov yells,” Mila said, refilling her glass and Yuuri’s as she spoke, “but he remembers my birthday, and my mother’s, and he let me bring my kitten to practice when she was little.”  
  
That sounded like Yakov. It did not, however, sound like Victor, who had forbidden Nathalie from wearing her lucky pink wrist band earlier that week until she’d managed to do a clean run-through of her short program. “Vitya isn’t as nice.”  
  
“No,” she agreed, clinking their glasses again. “Or, well. Vitya is actually really nice? I mean, you know, you’re married to him. But — he can be, ah, mean. Pretty mean.”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri agreed. He though of Victor chasing him around Hasetsu on a bicycle, making pig noises. He thought of Victor telling Dima he needed to master his technique now, before his growth spurt destroyed his progress “like Yura’s has.” He thought about Victor complaining that none of the young champions were working hard enough. “He thinks that’s what he’s supposed to do.”  
  
“Hmm.” Mila frowned into her drink, which was quickly empty. Yuuri’s was, too, and she fixed that in short order. Across the room, Yuuri saw a flash of something gray, and then a cat’s furry face peeked out from behind the television’s flat panel. “Well, he’s only ever had Yakov, and I guess his terrible parents.” She smiled, suddenly. “But now he has you!”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri said, feeling a flicker of fiery dread. He quenched it with his newly refilled glass. “I guess he does.”  
  
An hour later, Yuuri was pleasantly buzzed. He discovered this by standing up and then watching Mila’s apartment slosh gently around him. “Ah,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Vodka.”  
  
Mila giggled. “You are all right?”  
  
Yuuri nodded, then waited for the room to steady. He gestured toward the bathroom and excused himself there. After he’d used the facilities and splashed water on his face, he felt — well, still lightly drunk, but better, at least. His practice clothes felt too tight, too warm, so he unzipped his jacket and rolled his sleeves up. Maybe he should walk home, he thought. The cold air might help clear his head, and also, he missed Victor.  
  
He didn’t know where Victor was at the moment. Probably, he had gone home by now. Maybe he was making dinner. Would he be worried about Yuuri? Did he even still care? Yuuri tried to wipe that concern away physically, rubbing the side of his head.  
  
The thin hallway seemed steadier when he left the bathroom, and Yuuri picked his way back to the living room carefully. Mila was on the phone when he walked in. “ — Well, Mom’s definitely drunk,” she said, looking over at Yuuri.  
  
Yuuri gasped and looked behind himself, toward the closed bedroom doors at the end of the hall. “Your mother is here?” he asked.  
  
Mila giggled again. “Definitely come over,” she said into the phone. She clicked off her phone and turned to him. “Another drink? Music? What will help?”  
  
“Victor,” Yuuri said, sighing. He sunk onto the couch. “Mila, he is so beautiful.”  
  
“Ah, well, we all know that,” she said. She sat beside him, tidily refilling his cup. He didn’t remember picking it up again.  
  
“You do?”  
  
She nodded, then rested her head on his shoulder. “Everyone had a crush on Victor at some point, you know?”  
  
“I do,” Yuuri agreed, feeling sad.  
  
“It’s like a rite of passage at the rink.” She sipped neatly from her glass, head still turned against him. This was a level of drinking skill that Yuuri wasn’t sure he should admire, but he did. “Or it was until you came along.”  
  
“That’s right!” Yuuri said. “He’s off the market. Mine! I have, somewhere, I have proof? We got a license and I —“  
  
“No, no,” Mila said, laughing. “I meant now all the little ones have their ritual crush on you!”  
  
“Whaaaaat? No,” Yuuri said.  
  
“You are the men’s World Champion,” Mila said. “You’re the men’s GPF champion. You hold three world records.”  
  
Yuuri rolled his eyes and then immediately regretted it. “Victor has five world championships and —“  
  
“And your ass looks better in tights,” Mila said.  
  
“Oh?” Yuuri sat up, then nearly fell over trying to look behind him. “Do you — you really think so?”  
  
“Everyone thinks so,” Mila said.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“We took a poll,” she said, nodding with such somberness that Yuuri did believe her.  
  
He believed her enough that he hugged her, and then moved right into hugging Georgi when he walked in a moment later. “You’re all so nice,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Holy shit,” Yuri said, having apparently walked in with Georgi. “What did you feed him?”  
  
“Vodka,” Mila said, sounding too cheerful. “Where’s Vitya?”  
  
“Outside, on the phone,” Yuri said.  
  
Yuuri leaned back from Georgi, who he’d apparently been half-sleeping against for the last minute. “You brought Victor? Victor is here? Does he — does he know I’m here?”  
  
“He’ll be here soon,” Georgi said. He propelled Yuuri back toward the couch, where Yuuri sat too quickly and felt instantly dizzy. “He has come here to find you.”  
  
“I can’t believe you got Mom drunk,” Yuri said, and Yuuri flinched back.  
  
“Wait. I’m — because Victor is Dad?” Mila and Georgi burst into giggles, and Yuri rolled his eyes so hard that Yuuri felt dizzy from it. “We’re not your parents! I’m only 24!”  
  
“Whatever, Mom,” Yuri said, and Mila burst into a fresh round of laughter.  
  
Victor appeared within only a few moments, looking fond and exasperated. “Mila, really,” he said, shaking his head.  
  
“Hey, he usually has excellent tolerance," she said, clanking her glass against Yuuri’s glass.  
  
“I do,” Yuuri said. “Except when I’m frustrated.”  
  
Victor smiled. “How long has he been doing that?”  
  
“Since Georgi and Yura came in,” Mila said. Yuuri could feel her giggling next to him. “It’s cute.”  
  
“It is," Victor seemed to agree. “Yuuri, are you ready to go home now, love?”  
  
“Yes,” he said.  
  
“Do you know you’re speaking Japanese?”  
  
“Hai,” Yuuri said, and then, “oh, no, wait, I didn’t realize.”  
  
Mila’s giggles increased. “Welcome back, Yuuri!”  
  
They decided to walk home, in part because Victor said Yuuri needed the air and in part because Victor hadn’t brought his car. Mila’s apartment block stood three streets back from a thoroughfare, and they started that way. Fog gathered in glowing yellow spheres under the sodium lighting, and the wind twirled against their ankles.  
  
Victor put his arm around Yuuri’s waist as they walked down the sidewalk and said, “Please, if you can, stop worrying. I’m not angry. I hope you aren’t either, so much, anymore?”  
  
“No,” Yuuri admitted, leaning into Victor’s shoulder. “It’s hard to stay angry with you, even when I should be.”  
  
“Well, I will take that.” They walked on, the street growing narrower and small swirls of snow kicking up beneath their feet. Yuuri still had on his tights from the rink under his long coat and workout sweats. Dried sweat seemed to freeze against his skin. “You’re shivering.”  
  
“Mm.” Victor pulled him toward the curb and started to poke at his phone, probably arranging for a car. While he was tucked close against him, Yuuri felt safe and surprisingly warm. He put his arms around Victor’s waist, a long reach around his heavy coat, and closed his eyes. A moment later, he felt Victor pocket his phone, and then he felt a hat being tugged over his head. “Car will be here in a few minutes. Are you feeling OK?”  
  
“Just fine," Yuuri assured him. Victor hummed, again, and pulled on Yuuri’s arms, repositioning him so they were slid underneath Victor’s coat. This was much better. “Now I’m great. How are you?”  
  
Victor nuzzled Yuuri’s hair, or at least his hat. “I am tired,” he said, quietly. “I find I’m not looking forward to traveling tomorrow.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” Yuuri started to pull back, so he could look at Victor’s face. “I could still —“  
  
“No.” Victor held him close. “You’re right. They need a break. I need a break. It would be good for them to practice with you for a while, away from me… and my system.”  
  
“Vitya…” He clung on to Victor more tightly, pressing his face into the shoulder of Victor’s jacket. “I’m sorry,” he said.  
  
“For what?”  
  
“Last night.” The buzz of alcohol made his words move swiftly, a rush of worry and love and maybe a hint of frustration, still. “Maybe I — I shouldn’t have encouraged Yuri to stay. But it was one night, and he’s nervous. I didn’t realize — “ He shook his head, anxiety starting to flutter in his chest. “You’ve never minded him before.”  
  
Victor kissed his brow. This close, he could smell the sharp clean tang of Victor’s sweat, even over the exhaust and damp from the street beyond. “I know,” he said. “I — I don’t know why it bothered me so much last night.”  
  
That didn’t seem quite true to Yuuri, but he wasn’t going to press. “Are you still angry?”  
  
“I’m not angry at you,” Victor said, quickly. “And I wasn’t really angry last night. Just — frustrated.”  
  
Yuuri laughed. “I was annoyed. Maybe a little angry.”  
  
“I know.” A car slid slowly through the nearest intersection, paused, and started again. The misty air had started to solidify into pin-prick snowflakes. “And I’m sorry. I’m conscious of your good points,” he said. “Darling, I am.”  
  
Yuuri nodded. He snuggled closer. “This is good communication,” he said, mostly to the fluff of Victor’s coat. “We are being very good adults.” Victor laughed. He turned in Yuuri’s grip, angling toward the street and holding out his arm to wave the car over. They were good adults, and good role models, Yuuri thought, perhaps excepting this one drunken night. Maybe it wasn’t so silly of the others to think of Victor as “dad.”  
  
The world swayed gently around him. Yuuri wasn’t sure if it was his drinking or Victor rocking him. He looked up and asked, “Do you ever want children?”  
  
Victor looked down at him so sharply that they nearly knocked heads. Yuuri flinched back to avoid the collision, then flinched again as headlights swept brightly over his face. He turned to see Victor laughing, both hands over his face. After a moment, he did a melodramatic twirl and then embraced Yuuri again, one hand resting on the car that had just arrived.  
  
“Vitya?”  
  
He nodded, then drew back and opened the door for Yuuri. Yuuri slid into the back of the sedan, listened to Victor chat swiftly with the driver, then settled in against him again.  
  
“You want me dead, is that it?” Victor murmured, speaking Japanese.  
  
“What?! Come on.”  
  
“Children? You’re asking me now, this moment, when I —“ he paused, then shook his head. His voice grew lower. “When I’m barely holding it together as is?”  
  
Yuuri sat up enough to look at Victor’s face. He was staring down into the foot well of the car. “What?” he asked, barely a breath. “What are you talking about? You’re doing great.”  
  
“Sometimes, perhaps. But you’re right,” Victor said. “It isn’t any fun. I hate it,” he said, very quietly. “I — is this all there is for me? Fetching new skate laces and yelling at teenagers about traveling during their spins?”  
  
“That’s not all,” Yuuri said.  
  
“Hm.” Victor lifted his head, but he looked out the window instead of right at Yuuri. The yellow lights blurred past outside, flecks of snow beginning to streak into lines. He said nothing more until they’d pulled up to Victor’s building, when he thanked the driver and held out a hand for Yuuri. “Careful,” he murmured, as they both stepped onto the icy sidewalk.  
  
“It would be funny to fall on ice here,” Yuuri said, rubbing his hands up his arms as they walked into the lobby.  
  
“It would break my heart if you were injured,” Victor said, voice too serious, and Yuuri looked over.  
  
“I’m fine.” Victor nodded, a false smile on his face that made Yuuri begin to sober. He curled his hand around Victor’s forearm. “Vitka, I’m just fine.”  
  
“I know,” he said, a note of forced lightness back in his voice.  
  
Yuuri frowned, following Victor into the elevator. Victor tapped on his phone, probably letting the others know they were home safely or sending a note to their dog walker. Makkachin was waiting for them when they returned, tail wagging as soon as she saw them. She nudged Yuuri’s hand in a hello, then walked back to her comfortable bed by the heater, which meant she’d been walked recently enough. Potya yawned from on top of the tallest kitchen cabinet.  
  
While Yuuri struggled with his shoes, Victor disappeared into the kitchen. He emerged with two glasses of water. “Drink a bit before you sleep.”  
  
“Talk to me,” Yuuri said, resting his hand on Victor’s face. His skin felt cold, still, against Yuuri’s rapidly warming hands.  
  
“What’s to say? I’m tired,” Victor said, softly. Yuuri nodded, stroking his thumb over Victor’s cheekbone. “I — it will be strange to go to Euros tomorrow without…” He cleared his throat but did not sip from his water glass. “I miss Yakov.”  
  
“I know,” Yuuri said, and now he pulled Victor closer. “Of course you do.”  
  
VIctor pressed his lips into a straight line, as though holding something back: a confession, a concern, something. He shook his head and stepped back. “We should rest.”  
  
“Yes,” Yuuri agreed. His own head felt heavy, now, from the drinks and a new blanket of concern. The apartment creaked around them as the heaters protested their constant use. Yuuri walked back to their bedroom with one shoulder balanced against the wall.  
  
“I’ll care for you,” Victor said in clumsy Japanese, steering Yuuri through the dark of the room and to the bed.  
  
“I know,” Yuuri murmured, trusting himself to Victor’s care. He wanted to stay awake, to help Victor ease his worries, to get him to talk past that thin-lipped sigh, but the alcohol and the long day hit all at once. As Victor settled him safely, warmly into their bed, Yuuri fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more (short-ish) chapter to go! Thanks for all the kind comments so far!


	19. Sunday, 22 January 2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Off to Euros!

In the morning, Yuuri had a headache and an unbearably amused husband. “When would you like to start our family?” Victor asked when Yuuri sat across from him at the breakfast bar.

Yuuri groaned. “Shut up, please.” 

Victor just laughed and passed a cup of coffee. “We’re meeting for brunch before the flight. You’ll come, yes?”

“OK,” Yuuri agreed. He sipped his coffee and stared across the island at Victor. “How are you this morning?”

“Fine,” Victor said. “Ready to win.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow. “Not with the lazy combination we saw yesterday, you’re not.”

Now, Victor smiled for real. “Good thing I’ve saved a bit of extra energy to surprise everyone, then, isn’t it?”

That sounded promising, and Yuuri said so. Victor seemed delighted by the chance to tease him. “No, you’ll have to see with everyone else,” he said, after pausing to (dramatically) consider whether to reveal his secret. “I hope you’ll be watching.”

“You know I will,” Yuuri said. “I won’t look away for a moment.”

He saw Victor’s smile grow warmer, softer somehow. “Good. I’ll bring that gold home as soon as I can — assuming I’m not so late they leave without me. Hurry up! You’ll definitely need a shower.”

Forty-five minutes later, Yuuri found himself staring across a diner table at Mila and Yuri. Both looked delighted to see him. Victor left him to them while he went outside to answer a phone call and to greet Georgi.

“Hey Katsudon,” Yuri said at about 1.5 times his usual volume. “How is your morning, so far?”

“Fine,” Yuuri said, keeping his face carefully blank. The few headache caplets he’d taken did help. “How’s yours?

“Great,” Yuri said, “because I can remember everything that happened last night.”

“Oh no,” Yuuri said, burying his face into his hands. Mila giggled, having at least the decency to look a little guilty. “Are you all right this morning?”

“I stuck to water and tea,” she said, shrugging. “I have to travel today and compete this week! But I didn’t want you to feel alone.”

Yuuri cupped his hands around his too-small cup of coffee. “Thanks," he said, “I guess. I know I wasn’t at my best yesterday —“

Yuri snorted. “You literally cursed out your husband in, like, two or three languages in front of all of us, then flounced away to get drunk.”

“I know,” Yuuri said, miserably. “I’m so, so —‘

“It was like the most Russian thing I’ve ever seen you do,” he said, grinning, “and that includes that one time you tried to work Georgi’s samovar.”

“It’s possessed,” Yuuri said, recoiling at even the memory. “It doesn’t count.”

As Yuri and Mila continued to cackle both at him and with him, Yuuri felt swift gratitude for the demonstrative nature of Western culture. Yelling at your coach-husband during training was apparently no big deal. 

They had a good brunch. Mila and Yuri were both in high spirits, both seeming to be ready for the competition. Georgi looked content, and it surprised Yuuri to notice how much older than his teammates he seemed. Victor was calm and assured, as usual, wearing his second-best suit and an indulgent smile most of the morning. Yuuri sat next to Victor, close in the booth, and wished he was traveling with them to Ostrava. He’d spent very little time alone in Russia, and while being on his own didn’t much worry him, he knew he’d miss Victor. 

They had decided to leave directly from the restaurant. Yuri and Mila had already stashed their bags in Victor’s car, and now they walked ahead with Georgi while Yuuri and Victor said their goodbyes. 

“I’ll call you tonight,” Victor promised. His hand squeezed Yuuri’s, and Yuuri nodded. He leaned closer, until their hips brushed and Yuuri’s arm was tangled with Victor’s. “Do you think you’ll watch from the rink?”

“For the women’s program, yes, but yours from home.”

He nodded. “Invite the others, if you’d like.”

Yuuri nodded. He wasn’t sure yet if he’d want company. “I’ll talk it over with Makkachin.”

“Good idea.” 

They stopped about ten feet from the car. Mila had already claimed the front passenger’s seat, while Yuri had one foot hanging out the window in the backseat. Georgi had settled his bags in the trunk, which he closed with a gentle clap. “Ready when you are, Vitya.”

Victor smiled down at Yuuri. “I’ll miss you. Take care of Makka.”

“Take care of yourself,” Yuuri said. “And those three, I guess.”

“I’ll do my best.” They kissed good-bye as they always did: Yuuri’s anxiety always flared, worried that he was clinging too tightly, only to be relieved when Victor didn’t let him go at the end of the embrace.

“I love you. Bring me back that gold.”

Victor smiled against Yuuri’s forehead. “Anything for you. I love you, as well. See you in a few days.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, the end... for now. I have the next story (Euros --> Worlds) in the works, but it's a story I want to post all at one time, I think, not in chapters. So thanks to those who've read so far, and commented or kudo'ed, and I hope I'll see you next level!
> 
> P.S. It's possible that the first line I wrote for this entire story was the line about Georgi's samovar.


End file.
